The Reminders of Yesterday
by Nibelethe
Summary: During a routine mission, two years after the Narada incident, the Enterprise beams its Captain and away-team back from an uninhabited planet, only to find them drastically altered. No Pairings.
1. Chapter 1

Before you read Yesterday, let me first say thank you to Spockaholic. Without her, this story would be, quite literally, not be worth the electricity in your screen. She has been a muse, a comfort and wonderful critic. All the best bits are hers, all the blunders are mine.

Also thank you to Tresa_Cho, who gave the 1st draft a read and edit. She's a more talented writer than me.

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><p><em>Angels and ministers of grace defend us!<br>Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd,  
>Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,<br>Be thy intents wicked or charitable,  
>Thou comest in such a questionable shape<br>That I will speak to thee: I'll call thee Hamlet,_  
>Hamlet - Act 1, Scene IV<p>

**Prologue**

Many years ago, if someone had told him that the Universe had a twisted sense of humor and was out to get him, Spock would not have laughed. Instead, he would have calmly and rationally pointed out the flaws in their conclusion, commented on their lack of logic and subtly recommended that they seek medical advice. Or not so subtly, depending on the person involved.

Then an arrogant and brazenly human cadet hacked his Kobayashi Maru simulation, and mere days later he had found himself serving under the command of one James T. Kirk and quite content to do so.

After approximately 1.83 years as First Officer of the Enterprise, Spock no longer protested against such statements. At least not to himself. He'd still disagree with Doctor McCoy on the issue, but after running several calculations and determining that what his Captain repeatedly referred to as 'weird shit' did indeed occur upon the Enterprise significantly more often than any other ship in the fleet, he had become at least somewhat resigned to the idea.

This came in useful. It meant, for example, that when the away team beamed back up to the Enterprise, he was able to catch his Captain and prevent his collapse to the floor before he'd even fully absorbed the fact that his Captain was not only somewhat shorter than he should've been, but appeared to have significantly less muscle mass. As emphasizedby the ill fit of his uniform.

Spock scanned the rest of the away team with a practiced eye as the transporter technician commed for a med-team.

He had no trouble identifying the small crumpled child a few feet away from him as Pavel Chekov, nor the two unconscious youths as the engineering team who had accompanied the Captain on the supposedly routine mission. Those three should prove easy enough to deal with, but he felt a small shiver of unease brush against his control as some of the Captain's more outrageous stories of his youth sprung to mind.

As he reluctantly allowed the medical team to take custody of his Captain's body, Spock allowed himself a moment to feel a strong distaste for time travel before refocusing on his duties. He would inform Lieutenant Commander Scott and Lieutenant Sulu that they would have command for the foreseeable future. He needed to be close at hand when his Captain regained consciousness.

Should his suspicions prove correct and the crew's appearance heralded a more than just physical regression in age, he would merely have to hope that his Captain would remain calm and listen to the explanation he had to offer. Based on past experience, Spock doubted this would prove true.

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><p><strong>Chapter One<strong>

Doctor McCoy swore as he read the tricorder, then froze and sent a panicked look back towards the youngest figure on the bio-beds.

Thankfully, the kid was still asleep but the hobgoblin's theory seemed to be holding up. This wasn't exactly their away team. Oh sure, they were the same people, same DNA, same medical history and same scars, (which in Jim's case were pretty hard to miss), but only up to a point. The neurological scans confirmed it; these were not their crewmates a decade younger. These were their crewmates as they were a decade roughly a decade ago.

Whatever implausible, bizarre and _typically _Enterprise anomaly had done this, it'd replaced their away-team with themselves at different points in the timeline. Only Jim was actually a decade younger. Lieutenants Garrard and Sims had respectively lost six and nine years, placing them both in their early twenties and Chekov was worse. For some god-forsaken reason he doubted would ever be explained, the baby of the Enterprise was now a whole fourteen years younger.

When they woke, which his scans indicated would be soon, they weren't going to have trained Starfleet personnel on their hands. They were going to have a scared, five year old Russian kid, two cadets who were probably considering specializing in engineering, and a teenage Jim. This was not going to be fun.

He knew one thing for certain, as soon as things were back to normal, he was going to have a serious talk with his friend about his medical history. He'd always assumed that those ribs were the result of too many bar fights but apparently they were a lot older than that. They even showed signs of being re-broken and put through a few sessions of osteo-regen to heal into a better position.

He was also going to talk to that boy about the signs of old malnutrition in his body. What he'd taken to be markers of a typical nutrient meager diet of a twenty-something trying to scrounge enough credits together to eat was a lot more serious.

If he was reading these scans right, and he hoped to God he wasn't, the seventeen year old had just spent the last three or four years of his life _recovering_ from near starvation.

He and Jim were going to have a serious talk about that.

He wanted to know how a teenage kid in Federation territory, who said he'd only been off Earth a few times in his life before Starfleet, could suffer from malnutrition so severe that it damn well nearly killed him… and would have if Jim were any less stubborn. For that little chat, he would happily sacrifice a bottle of Romulan Ale.

Behind McCoy, one of the bio-beds let out a soft and hastily stifledchirp as a patient sat up and began to search for the ill-fitting clothes most nurses left for their patients these days. As he pulled on the pants, James T. Kirk assessed his situation. Waking up on a bio-bed was nothing new, but normally it was in a hospital. Generally speaking, hospitals didn't hum beneath his toes or have so many shiny, high-tech toys so he was guessing Starfleet. Someone probably found out his last name and the Captain knew, or more likely _knew of_, his father. That could be dealt with later. What was important now was getting away from anything that smelt like disinfectant.

Unfortunately, there was a scowling man in medical blue between him and the door, and there weren't exactly many places to hide. He shrugged as he reached for the matching basic-black t-shirt.

Sometimes the simplest ways worked best.

"So can I go, Doc?"

After almost five years of knowing Jim Kirk, the answer to that question was hardwired into him and he answered before he'd even realized who was asking.

"No, you can _not _go," said McCoy as he spun round to face his patient, his scowl firmly in place. "And put that shirt down right now! Do you even know where you are?"

"In sickbay on a Federation starship," Jim replied, ignoring the officer as he shrugged on the t-shirt. "I'd tell you the name but I don't actually remember it. It was quite a night last night."

McCoy refused to look surprised. This was Jim he was dealing with. If anyone else woke up in a strange place, surrounded by medical equipment and couldn't remember why, they would have panicked. Hell, he would panic and he _was_ a doctor, he practically lived in sickbay. Jim apparently assumed he'd drunk too much. Or whatever the hell else made sense to the underaged idiot.

"Oh really? And I suppose you can tell me the Stardate?" He asked as he reached for a nearby hypo full of Jim-friendly drugs, without taking his eyes off his patient, of course. He'd fallen for _that_ one a few too many times. The kid never did like doctors. Too many allergic reactions, he supposed.

True to form, Jim's eyes immediately locked onto the hypo before summoning what Bones recognizedas his best 'I-know-my-body-better-than-you' look with just a hint of 'you're-over-reacting'. The kid hadn't tried to pull that on him since their first month in the academy, after the Cardassian Sunrise incident… that he'd promised himself to never EVER remember.

"Look, no offense Doc, but I'm outta here."

"No, you're not."

"Unless there's something medically wrong with me, you have no grounds to keep me here," he said, as he located a pair of shoes and began pulling them on. They were a size or two too big but if he had to make a run for it, he'd rather have badly fitting shoes than no shoes.

McCoy watched, his temper growing as Jim's eyes flick over the sickbay before focusing back on his hypo. He knew exactly what was going through Jim's mind right now and if the kid honestly thought he could escape, he had another thing coming. He certainly wasn't falling for that nonchalant act. He knew Jim was tracking his every move, just waiting for him to get distracted. Jim had done this too many times for him to feel anything other than pissed off.

"The hell I don't," McCoy said, waving the sedative-filled hypo at his patient. He'd promised Spock that he'd keep their Captain confined to sickbay, and he was going to keep that promise. "You are going lie back down this instant and let me run every single scan I deem medically relevant before I tranquilize you and strap you down!"

From behind him, a young boy burst into tears and McCoy froze. The bastard he called friend just smirked.

"Sounds kinky, but I think you're a bit busy," Jim said. "I'll come back later."

"That would be unwise, sir," declared a calm voice from the doorway.

Even a year ago, Bones wouldn't have trusted the green-blooded hobgoblin within twenty feet of a vulnerable Jim Kirk, but that had changed. Even he had to admit that the cold-blooded Vulcan would rather put his own life in peril than Jim's these days. Hell, the bastard seemed almost as protective of the kid as he was and he had to attend to his other patients.

It took a split-second for the doctor to put down the hypo and rush towards the sobbing Chekov, leaving Jim with his First Officer.

"We are currently in orbit around Saresh IV," continued Spock, ignoring the rapidly increasing chaos across the room in favor of the human in front of him. "And I submit that as the planet below is an uninhabitable wasteland containing only an unmanned mineral processing station, that you stay and allow Doctor McCoy to complete his examination."

Spock was not used to his Captain staring at him with such grim and undisguised suspicion, but at least it was better than the mocking cheer Doctor McCoy had received. He had planned to be at Jim's side when he awoke, but Spock's review of the transporter logs had taken slightly longer than he had expected. Apparently, there had been no obvious fault but he had left the more in-depth analysis to the capable Mr. Scott.

"Since when are there Vulcan's in Starfleet?" asked Jim and Spock quirked an eyebrow at the threatening tone. It was a subtle shift in vocal patterns but one he had learned to listen for. It meant that his Captain believed he was being deceived.

"Since I enlisted on Stardate 2249.8. Due to some as yet unknown event, you appear to have been transported approximately ten years into the future," said Spock, trying to adjust his body language into something humans would accept as non-threatening. Judging from Jim's crossed arms, he was unsuccessful.

"Bullshit."

"Sir?"

"You heard me. I don't know what game you think you're playing but I don't have time for it." Jim finished fastening his shoes, as tight as possible to account for the size difference. "You know how it is, places to go, people to see. I'm not hanging about for some-"

"Perhaps if you were to examine the datapad by your side? It will concur with my statement."

Jim spared a calculating glance at the Vulcan before picking up the medical datapad and quickly scanning it. He only spent a few seconds accessing sections of its database before casually tossing it back to the side.

"You realize that's not proof, right? Anyone can fake a datapad."

"Of course sir," allowed Spock.

"Alright, I'll play along for now," he said. "First things first, you can stop it with the 'sir' thing."

Spock felt a brief flicker of exasperation brush against his control. He was certain it made perfect sense from some bizarrely human point of view, but it did not change the fact that his Captain seemed utterly obsessed with being on a first name basis with him.

Apparently, no matter what incarnation of Jim he was dealing with, he was going to refuse to allow him to treat Jim with the honor and respect he deserved. It was most vexing. However, at the moment it was more important to keep Jim calm. He doubted that the human who had hacked into his Kobayashi Maru simulation was harmless a few short years beforehand.

"Very well. I am Commander Spock, First Officer on board the Enterprise, Jim."

Jim froze.

"Now what Fleet file did you pull _that_ name from _Commander_?" he asked in a measured voice. There was silence for a few seconds as Spock tried to understand why calling his Captain by name had provoked such an odd response.

"I had been informed that 'Jim' is the commonly preferred diminutive for James," he offered and the muscles of Jim's shoulders relaxed slightly.

"Yeah well… not everyone likes the common diminutives."

"I did not intend any offense."

He sighed and offered Spock a wan smile which was somehow more disturbing than the wariness of before.

"Just… just call me JT, ok? Now if you excuse me, I'm going to get the kid to stop crying."

"Indeed?"

Spock quickly raised an eyebrow as he examined the far side of the room.

Pavel Chekov was no longer sitting on top of the bio-bed, screaming. Instead, he was curled up beneath the bed as far away from everyone as he could manage. In an attempt to remove him from his hiding spot, the two cadets, Doctor McCoy and Head Nurse Chapel were huddled round the sides of the bed. Their current method of extraction seemed to be alternately talking over each other, and admonishing the others for scaring the child.

While Spock had no training in the care of the young of any species, nor indeed any experience in such a field, it looked very much like the child was becoming increasingly terrified by all the attention.

"How do you intend to do so, if I might ask?" He inquired, careful to remain respectfully curious instead of doubtful.

This time JT's smile was just amused.

"Watch and learn," he replied as he walked over to the undignified crowd. "Hey! Everyone! Step away from the bed."

The crowd immediately backed away. He may have been only seventeen, but James T. Kirk still had the ability to elicit unthinking obedience.

With everyone a good few paces away, JT stepped forwards and sat down roughly half a meter away from the bio-bed, leaving enough room for Chekov to dart past him if he wished. He sat in silence for a few moments, waiting for the sobs under the bed to subside to a level suitable for talking.

"Hey there, I'm JT. What's your name?"

Chapel tried to answer in Chekov's stead, but a glare from JT silenced her almost immediately. A few seconds later, a sobbed whisper drifted up from under the bio-bed.

"Pasha."

"Pasha? That's a nice name. You from Russia, Pasha?"

"Da, from Proletarij near Novgorod."

The teenager smiled slightly at the tactic. Almost every child dealing with strangers used that one. As it was wrong to lie to an adult, you used locations that you were certain they wouldn't recognize. The kid was smart. Thankfully, it also gave him an easy way to win Pasha's trust.

"Really? That's only about a hundred kilometers south of Sankt-Peterburg, isn't it?" he asked, careful to put the proper accent onto the city's name. The kid already knew he wasn't Russian but pronouncing his words properly instead of using the mangled Standard would win him some brownie points.

Pasha uncurled enough to stare up at him and JT forced himself to concentrate on those suspicious eyes and not the people behind him. Their intent staring was setting his teeth on edge and he couldn't let Pasha see that. Instead, he forced himself into a casual slouch and watched the child relax just a fraction more.

"Da... you been there?"

"Nope. I made it to Belarus, but not any further."

"It nice, you should visit."

"Someday," JT agreed. "Maybe you could show me around?"

"Maybe." Despite his doubts, Pasha moved closer to the edge of his inefficient hiding place.

JT rewarded him with his most charming smile but remained exactly where he was. The most important thing now was to keep Pasha calm so that the staff could make sure he was all right. He may not like Starfleet, but he could trust them to do that at least.

"Hey Pasha, did the mean old doctor scare you?"

"He is not like doctor at home," he said fiercely and JT nodded. The Fleet Officer's lack of bedside manners was pretty obvious.

"Are they nice back home?"

"They have lollipops."

JT gazed up at Doctor McCoy as if to examine him for evidence of the supposed lollipops. The CMO glared back at him.

"I don't think this doctor gives out lollipops," said JT.

"Niet! He eats them himself!"

"I wouldn't put it past him. He looks like _vorchlivyj chelovek_."

Watery giggles issued from under the bed and Spock resolved to find out what had been said. From his expression, Doctor McCoy thought he knew and did not approve of such language around young children. Fortunately the young 'Pasha' Chekov could not see the doctor's expression from his vantage point.

"But you know what his uniform means right?"

"He is in Starfleet?"

"Uh-huh, and do you know what those gold bands are?"

"He is Lieutenant Commander," replied Pasha more confidently.

"That's right, you're good. So the doctor's probably the Chief Medical Officer for his entire ship. I don't think he gets out much." Pasha giggled again and JT's smile widened a bit more. "Let's cut him a break and let him make sure we're healthy alright?"

"Da," he agreed hesitantly.

Despite his acquiescence, it took a few moments before Pasha began to edge out from under the bio-bed but JT waited patiently and the rest of the crew took their cue from him. Sure enough, within a minute of slow, cautious movements, he emerged from his hiding place and stood by JT. He grinned his approval, despite the way Pasha edged behind him so that JT shielded him from the other adults.

As far as JT was concerned, it was good enough and he pushed himself to his feet.

Pasha frowned when JT asked permission to put him back on the bio-bed but allowed it. So far JT had been nothing but nice to him and everyone else was in Starfleet uniforms. Starfleet were good people, even if the doctor was a mean old man. Not all adults were smart, he knew that. Even so, he kept hold of JT's sleeve as the doctor stepped towards him.

"Hi Pasha, I'm sorry I scared you. I am Doctor Leonard McCoy and I'm just going to run a few tests. Is that alright?"

He glared at him mistrustfully before looking back at JT. Unfortunately, his new friend seemed to think it was a good idea but that did not mean he had to like it.

"Only my friends call me Pasha," he announced. "To you, I am Pavel."

Bones glared at the teenager by the bio-bed as JT tried to hide his smirk without much success. This just proved a long-standing theory of McCoy's. Jim Kirk was a bad influence.

As far as JT was concerned, Pasha was a great kid. It was always nice to have someone on your side, even if it never lasted long. JT didn't know what was going on, where they were or how they'd got here but for the moment things were good and if there was anything he knew about life, it was to make the most of the good parts. They didn't happen very often.

"Alright then, Pavel," gritted out McCoy, still trying to be as friendly as possible for the boy's sake. He really was out of practice. "Can I run a few tests?"

Pasha glanced back at JT but he only nodded. Left without many choices, Pasha shrugged and JT stepped away to give McCoy room.

"Fascinating," commented Spock. He did not fail to notice the fact that while he had not made a noise to remind JT of his presence, he did not startle at his voice. Apparently, despite his seeming absorption in his chosen task, his future Captain had remained aware of his surroundings. He had previously believed that humans did not learn such habits until they were much older.

"Might I ask where you learned such skill with young children?"

"It's not much of a skill, Commander," JT shrugged. "You've just got to remember that kids aren't stupid. It helped that he trusts Starfleet."

"Indeed?"

"He was scared by the adults Spock, not the uniforms. Now how about you explain what's going on here and I'll ignore the fact that the Enterprise isn't even due to be brought before the Admiralty until next year."

"Construction on the Constitution-class Starship 'Enterprise NCC-1701' began on Stardate 2253.9. Her maiden voyage was approximately 1.83 Terran years ago, however as a ships commission is considered classified information until a maximum of two months beforehand, you could not legally know of the ship's creation from your point of view."

JT began to grin halfway through his statement and by the end of it, he had tilted his head and was leaning against a bio-bed in a very familiar fashion. As always, Spock allowed himself a moment of satisfaction for being the cause of the warm affection his Captain broadcast in such moments.

"I like you," JT announced. "Alright, we'll ignore that too. Now Commander, about that explanation?"

"Very well, sir. Approximately 28.7 minutes ago, four individuals- including yourself- were beamed up from the surface of Saresh IV in place of our away team. All four appear to be from different points in the past ranging from six years to fourteen. Preliminary diagnostics have revealed no anomalies before or during beam-up. However, I assure you, sir, that all efforts-"

"As I am neither in your charge or your superior," interrupted JT in almost perfect Vulcan. "It does not risk your honor to call me by my preferred name. This being true, it is hardly logical to risk the offence of ignoring my cultural beliefs and denying me such a simple request."

As shock brushed against his shields, Spock mentally added another 18 minutes onto his nightly meditation. It was somewhat disquieting to acknowledge that under Captain Pike, he had rarely extended his meditation sessions and he reminded himself that one day he would know his Captain well enough to stop underestimating him.

"Many humans find the Vulcan language to be very difficult to learn. Your achievement is to be commended." Spock acknowledged in his native language.

"Actually I prefer Pre-Reform," JT replied. "But if you will call me by name, I will speak in any Vulcan dialect you wish of me."

Spock immediately tapped down on the automatic reflex that would have had the tips of his ears burning and concentrated on keeping his expression serene. The last time he had been spoken to in such a manner was when the then-Cadet Uhura had been attempting to learn formal Vulcan. He believed that JT was rather more aware of the connotations behind his word choice.

"Indeed?" he replied, switching back to standard. Judging from JT's growing smirk he had been less successful at hiding his discomfort than he had hoped. "May I ask why you prefer such an archaic dialect when your modern Shi'Kahr accent is well developed JT?"

He shrugged but followed the switch back to Standard.

"Just because I can speak like a city-boy doesn't mean I want to. Besides, Pre-Reform Vulcan, especially the 95th Age stuff, has some of the best curses around. Those guys were pretty imaginative with their insults."

Such a statement was true, although not very polite to mention. However, it was also an explanation his Captain would never have expected to work on him. He may have believed the human before him to be crude and unthinking during the first hours of their acquaintance but no longer, although he was intensely aware of the Captain's desire to remain underestimated.

Spock was also very much aware of Jim's opinion on metaphorical imagery. During their last shore leave, he had accompanied Jim to an antique bookstore where his Captain had been delighted to find a leather bound collection of the works of William Shakespeare. Jim had been kind enough to spend the next few hours discussing ancient literature with him before Doctor McCoy had called the Captain away for a previous engagement. With that in mind, he believed he knew the reasoning behind JT's preference for such an era in Vulcan history.

"The majority of surviving records from that era tend to be poems," Spock stated. "Usually a warlord praising the virtues of his t'hy'la."

He was rewarded with the same challenging gleam that appeared in his Captain's eyes during chess but as soon as he recognized the spark, it was gone. Replaced with yet another empty smirk.

"Y'know, you really shouldn't trust 'stereotypical Caucasian Terran gender roles' on poetry but I'm impressed, Commander. You fight dirty."

"If I am to refer to you as JT, then I believe the correct response is for you to also call me by name."

"Alright, Spock," he replied, his smile almost softening into a more familiar form. "Now that we're on a first name basis, how about you stop with the abridged version and tell me what's going on here?"

"There is very little else known at this time other than the fact that our away team, consisting of two Engineering Lieutenants, our Chief Navigator and our Captain, are still missing."

"That's a pretty odd away team."

"The Captain tries to ensure that all senior staff has away team experience," he deliberately misunderstood and JT nodded, his movements almost casual as he straightened up from the bio-bed and loosely crossed his arms.

It did not take a Vulcan's observational skills to notice the tension in his deceptively positioned shoulders, how close his footing was to one of the Captains favored defensive stances or the insulted glint in those ice-blue eyes. Obviously he had chosen the wrong tactic and Spock found himself illogically wishing for the temporally correct version of his Captain to be present for this conversation.

"Still kind of weird for your Captain to be visiting unmanned stations."

He quietly evaluated the human before him. Jim often indicated his preference for truth over misdirection or falsehoods. He did not believe that such a thing would have been different a mere decade ago, and with his Captain's computer knowledge, it would not be long before he could conceivably uncover such relevant information. Surely it would be better to inform him of his future now and deal with any temporal consequences that occurred?

"Captain James T. Kirk is known for his unconventional tactics."

Spock had prepared himself for disbelief, for laughter or even anger but instead JT went still and he found himself under the same piercing gaze he had seen turned on numerous threats to the Enterprise. He had not realized how cold such a look was, nor could he quite connect the expression with the usual warmth Jim exuded. It was no more angry than the now-extinct winds that had encircled Mount Seleya, but seemed just as implacable.

With no warning, JT turned from him to retrieve the previously discarded PADD.

"Go."

"Sir?"

He turned to face him once more, but unlike before the cold look of before, now JT seemed merely angry. It was almost preferable, except for the sensation that he was failing his Captain, that he was not providing him with the support he needed.

"Like I said, I don't know what game you're playing, but I want nothing to do with it."

"JT," said Spock, trying to gentle his voice in the manner his mother had often used to calm him. "I am not playing a game."

"I don't like Starfleet, I don't trust Starfleet and I sure as fuck wouldn't _join_ Starfleet, so either leave or move out of my way."

"JT, please calm down."

"No! I'm not calming down!"

What happened next was an inexcusable loss of control by Vulcan standards. Knowing that his Captain often responded in a highly positive manner to physical contact, Spock tried to prevent his leaving with a gentle touch to his upper arm. His mind was immediately flooded with a storm of impressions and thoughts, chief of which was the scream 'don't touch me'.

Spock did not notice JT's more physical hostility until he struck at the nerve center just below his elbow.

His other hand immediately found the nerve cluster in his opponent's shoulder and sent a wave of psionic energy through his fingertips. Milliseconds after he realized he had just nerve pinched his Captain, JT was once more unconscious in his arms.

"JT!"

It took Spock a moment to realize that the voice had spoken in a heavy Russian accent at a pitch almost solely used by children, and therefore, the heartbroken cry could not have come from him. As gently as he could, Spock lifted him onto the nearby bio-bed, a dispassionate section of his mind making the all-too common observation on how light humans were, before turning back to face the rest of the room.

Pasha was struggling against the med-staff and doing quite well for such a small being.

"He killed him!" he screamed, tears streaming. "He killed JT!"

Spock stood silently, unsure what the correct procedure was. He had failed to be by his Captain's side when he awoke, angered him by misaddressing him and had then proceeded to assault his commanding officer and traumatize a small child in the process. He was struck once more by the strange thought that he wanted his Jim here. Jim would know how to fix this.

"Chekov!" called the CMO over the child's wailing. "He's not dead, he's just… sleeping."

"That's what adults say when they don't want to say dead!" he accused, his back arching as he pulled against the nurses grasp.

McCoy watched as his staff gripped tighter, if Chekov didn't calm down soon then he was going to end up hurt, one way or the other.

"Pasha," he pleaded. "Ji- JT's fine. He's fine. Everything's ok, just calm down."

He tried to reach past his nurses to the boy, but Chekov managed to get an arm free and slapped at him.

"Niet!"

One of his nurses grabbed at the flailing arm. McCoy didn't see who, but he did see his patient cringe and knew that the situation was getting out of hand. He reached for a mild sedative and quickly jabbed Chekov. He felt a brief pang as he realized that his medical instincts were sharper than his parental ones these days, but locked those thoughts away in the back of his mind with a thousand similar ones.

Pasha screamed at the new assault, but his cries quickly faded to whimpers and within seconds he was lying limp in the med-staffs hands. The trained professionals quickly loosened their grips, none of them wanting to admit how hard they'd been holding Pasha.

McCoy ignored the guilty looks. This had been a disaster, and he'd speak to all of his staff in turn to make sure it never happened again, but he was more concerned with getting Chekov back on the bio-bed.

He sighed once Pasha was arranged to his satisfaction and turned to Spock. His patients had only been awake for a few minutes and he already felt exhausted. The blank look on Spock's face didn't help.

"Spock? Maybe you should go check on the bridge. I'll call when Jim's awake… and calmed down a bit."

The First Officer nodded and left without a saying a word, leaving McCoy to stare after him.

His frustration quickly turned onto his other unconscious patient and he began to glare as he picked up another hypospray. Jim was his best friend and for almost two years now, the kid had been trying to befriend the hobgoblin. He'd be damned if he let his friend's work all go to waste now.

"Chapel, get me some restraints," he said, not taking his eyes off his patient. "The Jim-proof ones."


	2. Chapter 2

Again, thanks be to Spockaholic. As the old saying goes; the mistakes are mine, the successes are hers. And speaking of mistakes, what exactly does ffnet have against word anyway?

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><p><strong>Chapter Two<strong>

JT woke up as he normally did; silently and not betraying a thing. He recognized the hated sensation of being strapped to a bio-bed immediately. Of course, normally that was after an allergic reaction had left him convulsing so they just used the normal ones with the buckles he could undo in five to twenty seconds depending on how groggy the medication had left him.

These were not the buckled ones.

The straps were a bit more comfortable than usual and he was willing to bet they were magnetic. It might take him a minute or two to get out.

Of course, now the question was why was he in these new high-tech things. It took a few seconds for him to remember where the ache in his shoulder had come from and he bit back a curse. He'd almost thought neck pinches were something Vulcans had made up, but apparently not; they really could knock people out with a touch. Somehow, he had completely underestimated the threat value of that.

It was a bit more disconcerting than he'd assumed, and that Vulcan had been fast. He wondered if he trained or if it was just innate.

He absently let his mind focus on the question as he felt out the straps, careful not to alert the person sitting by his bed. From their breathing, he thought they were dozing. It was a steady, soft sound, easily counted but not deep enough to indicate proper sleep. As long as he was cautious, he could get out of these things before anyone noticed.

Especially if the hinges were where he thought they were.

Then he heard a whimper. His eyes snapped open but everything was fine. The sickbay was calm and quiet, there were no shadows large enough for anyone to hide in, and Pasha was barely fifteen feet away. Before JT could start to struggle against the restraints just in case, Pasha whimpered again, his face scrunched up as he pulled his thin blanket tighter around him.

"JT?"

JT relaxed. He'd probably have a lot less scarring and mental trauma if he could just ignore a scared child but at least a bad dream was simple.

"I'm here Pasha. Go back to sleep now," he said, trying to remember his St. Petersburg accent. Speaking Russian to the kid wasn't going to be much good if he sounded like a Belarusian and scared him awake. The doctor by his side shifted awake but thankfully kept quiet as Pasha whimpered again.

"JT?"

"Pasha, sleep," he waited until the young Russian had slipped back into sleep before turning a charming grin on the man by his bedside. It took a second to remember what language he was meant to be speaking in, but thankfully his original American Standard was always easiest to slip back into.

"Hey Doc, come here often?"

The blue-shirt ignored him.

"I'm a very understanding man, _JT_."

JT quickly re-calculated how many ways the man glaring at him could kill him. As always when he evaluated medical personnel, the answer was not reassuring and he did his best to relax into the bio-bed and seem as innocent and helpless as possible. It didn't help. If anything, the doctor's glare worsened.

"I'm very understanding when my best friend wants to play chess with his First Officer instead of drinking with me," McCoy continued. "I'm very understanding when he can get you to eat healthily when I've been telling you for years that grease is bad for you. I'm _very _understanding about listening to you moan when the hobgoblin won't plait your hair and I'll be damned if I'm going to let you risk all that understanding just because you haven't met the damn walking computer yet, y'hear me?"

"So… is everybody on this ship clinically insane?"

"We've got you as a Captain, moron. And you're going to apologize to the hobgoblin for whatever it is you said. I know it was you," he said before his patient could interrupt. "Nobody can piss off a Vulcan like you can."

"Very paternal," said JT. "I'm guessing daughter? Divorced obviously, wife got custody. How long's it been since you've seen your little princess? She couldn't have been that old back then, you really think she still remembers you?"

"We've been friends almost five years now, kid," he said, trying his best not to react. "Your creepy little intuition trick's not going to scare me."

"Friends, huh? Or were you just looking for someone to replace your daughter?" He leered at him and McCoy felt sick. "Want me to call you Daddy?"

Bones took a slow breath and stared up at the board displaying his patient's vitals. Everything looked good; pulse and blood pressure were stable, no indications of pain outside of tolerable aches, and no irregularities in brain waves. Everything was good. He concentrated on that for a few heartbeats.

"You go really calculating when you're scared, kid. Worse than Spock sometimes," he admitted. "And you bottle in all that anger and stress, but when you're confused, or someone's asking too many questions, you lash out. It's… it's always worse on the people closest to you, but I don't mind. You're my friend, Jim, and God knows you've put up with enough of my crap. Or will put up with I s'pose, time travel and all, but Spock takes things personally. He doesn't just think that someone's having a bad day, he assumes it's something he's done. So you're going to apologize to him, because the you from our time has been working too damn hard for his teenage-self to shut Spock back in his shell now."

There was silence for a moment or two, unbroken by anything but the gentle beeping of the monitors and the near-silent whir of the machinery around them.

"You going to untie me?"

"You going to apologize to the hobgoblin?"

JT nodded.

For once, the idiot actually stayed still as McCoy typed in the commands to release the magnetic bonds. By this point, he knew better than to show him where the manual release was. Somehow, Jim not only remembered that sort of information, but could apply it when severely delusional from a high-grade fever.

"I still say there's no chance in hell I'd join Starfleet."

"Not even on a dare?"

"What?"

"I wasn't there," McCoy shrugged. At the time, he'd been passed out with a bottle of cheap bourbon at the shipyards where the shuttles parked.

"But I've heard the story from half a dozen people. A recruiting officer broke up this fight you were in the middle of and, while you were bleeding on the floor, he looked you up and saw your test scores. When you were conscious again, Pike dared you to do better than your Father. You were on the next shuttle to San Francisco, still concussed and surrounded by all the shiny and eager cadets."

McCoy barely remembered the shuttle ride. He'd been coming down off a three-day bender, hadn't washed in longer and was terrified out of his mind by the thought that he was actually in something that _flew_. Jim claimed his first words to him were 'I may throw up on you', but the first thing he actually remembered was the next day when this disgustingly cheerful, beat-up kid was bouncing up and down on his bed, announcing that it was morning and calling him 'Bones'.

He'd been even more surprised when the lunatic had seemed to know just about everything about him. That had been before he realized that Jim could not only read people scarily well for a tested psi-null, but didn't seem to even acknowledge computer security… and that he'd been drunker than he'd thought.

"Pike…" JT repeated as he allowed the doctor to check over his wrists and upper chest where the restraints had been. For a Starfleet doctor, McCoy didn't seem to like relying on his gadgets, but at least he broadcast his intentions. He didn't know how much the Vulcan had gotten from that brief touch earlier, but JT knew his shields were pretty shabby these days. Too many nightmares and not enough sleep did that to your defenses.

"Commander Christopher Pike? The guy who did his thesis on the Kelvin?" he asked, finally realizing where he'd heard that name before.

"Same one," grunted McCoy, barely paying any attention as he logged his notes onto a nearby data-PADD. He was still worried about those ribs, but unless this teenage-Jim was going to be here for an extended time, it was probably best not to do anything with them. He knew Jim, as long as he was still functional, he'd completely ignore any injuries. He couldn't risk doing more harm than good.

"Huh. He did some really nice work on that," JT mused. "Research stuff. Not all the sentimental crap the newspapers do."

"Yep, you're president of his fan-club, Enterprise Chapter. Raise your left arm over your head." He commanded, ignoring the dark look from his patient as JT obeyed. "Any pain?"

"No."

"Good, no tendon damage-"

"And let's get one thing straight," he interrupted. "I've never met Chris Pike. I don't know him, I don't know you, and I don't know Spock. You seem to know some things about me you really shouldn't, I'll give you that, but whoever your captain is, I'm not him."

"Jim-"

"No," he said, and McCoy's mouth snapped shut without his permission. He was starting to think that the damn kid was born with that talent.

"My name's JT, not _Jim _and I'm seventeen, sawbones. Not an officer."

McCoy stared at him.

"What did you call me?"

"Sawbones?" He repeated, his confusion at the intent question eating away at his anger. "It's what they used to call doctors way back when. Suits you, they didn't use tricorders either."

For the first time since he'd heard the news that the entire away team needed medical attention, McCoy felt a smile hovering around the corners of his mouth. Suddenly the teenager sitting in front of him didn't seem strange at all. They were probably causing problems in the timeline backwards, forwards and sideways, but one way or another, they were going to get their Captain back.

"Just call me Bones, kid. And JT? You're still James T. Kirk, seventeen or twenty-seven." His patient stared at him, obviously confused and McCoy couldn't quite help the smile. "I'll go call Spock."

JT nodded and reached for a PADD that'd slipped under the bio-bed. McCoy thought about telling him that sickbay PADDs only had access to the medical computers before shrugging it off. Either he'd hack into the rest of the Enterprise or he'd find some Xeno-biology textbook. Either way, telling Jim he couldn't do something was always bad idea.

He did briefly look over Chekov on his way to his office, but he had another half hour of sedation to burn off. The two Engineering 'cadets' were still in an empty corner of sickbay. They talked quietly to each other every now and then but mostly obeyed his orders to stay put and keep out of the way.

He probably could have used the wall comm-unit for this conversation considering the entire bridge was going to hear it, but he tried to discourage Jim's eavesdropping habits whenever possible. Not that using the comm on his desk would stop a curious Kirk, but at least he'd be able to sit down for this conversation.

"McCoy to Spock."

"Spock here."

"Jim's woken up."

There was a pause and McCoy almost flicked the switch on and off to check if it was working. He hated technology. Thankfully, before he could send a wave of static up to the First Officer, the comm-unit crackled to life once more.

"I am certain, Doctor McCoy, that you will be able handle the situation."

"He's asking for you."

"In this instance, I believe your unpredictable emotionality will be better suited to the situation. Please alert me if he remembers anything that may be relevant to our investigation."

Yup, the hobgoblin was sulking. One of these days, he was going to find whoever had written the Fleet handbook on Vulcans and shove it up their ass. Just about the only person besides that damn thing who insisted Vulcans had near-perfect control over their emotions, was Spock himself, and he threw more tizzy fits than a ballerina. Usually over Jim ignoring him. The pair of them deserved each other.

"Look, you damn walking computer," he growled. "I've got four patients down here who've somehow traveled in time and you can't tell me why. Now I've got to look over every microscopic scan to make sure they're all healthy and not about to keel over from some weird-ass radiation or transporter errors, or whatever the hell else it was that brought them here. I can do _that_, or I can make sure Jim's not going to escape and cause havoc! Which one's it going to be?"

He half expected the Commander's next words to be a rebuke over repeating classified information on an unsecured system. Instead, the cold-blooded idiot merely replied that he would be down shortly and signed off.

The doctor glared some more at the gadget in front of him before glancing out his open door into his sickbay. Chekov was still out, no noise was coming from the young red-shirts and JT was… well, he was tapping away at the PADD still so he'd probably made it about half-way through the ships firewalls by now.

He sighed and reached for the well-hidden bottle in the bottom of his desk to pour himself a small glass. The scans weren't going to look at themselves and something in them might give Scotty a way to fix things.

True to his word, it only took Commander Spock four minutes and thirty-nine seconds to reach sickbay from the bridge. This was fifty-two seconds longer than usual but that was easily accounted for. With the current circumstances, it was necessary to keep himself constantly apprised of any progress made by the science section.

The thought that the additional fifty-two seconds had not been long enough to reassert his control did occur to him but he quickly dismissed it. The doctor had been quite correct to point out that his responsibility was to James T. Kirk. Until they recovered the away team and their Captain, that meant his duty was to this new, younger and more unstable JT.

It might also grant him the opportunity to inquire after JT's state of mind. While his Captain had an unusually dynamic mind that was oftentimes dizzying to encounter, it had never been painful before. In fact, he usually defined any telepathic encounters with Jim to be unmistakably pleasurable but the previous incident was quite the opposite. Even now, the screaming echoed through his thoughts in a most disconcerting manner.

Upon entering the sickbay, Spock was somewhat nonplussed to discover everything within regulation norms. The only non-recommended action was the fact that JT was currently accessing a data PADD.

He looked up at his entrance and Spock found himself oddly relaxed by the half-smile on JT's face.

"There's my programming all over this," he declared in a recognizably joking manner and Spock raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed? I believe security will be most interested to hear that the ship's computers have been altered in such a manner."

His small jest paid off when JT's half-smile widened into a true grin.

"Don't act so smug, you," he replied. "I recognize those Vulcan programming labyrinths. I've never had the patience to write anything like that in."

That was a curious statement. While almost every Vulcan programmer would include the logic traps into their programming, very few others would ever use such a tactic. Most computer programmers from other species found the habit to be something of a waste of time when there were other, simpler methods that yielded similar results. In effect, most carried the same opinion that JT had just offered, the logic traps were time-consuming to write.

"May I ask where you've encountered such things? It was my understanding that you had rarely been off-planet in your youth."

"Sure," he shrugged. "But every Starfleet base computer keeps an open link with San Fran, who stays linked to just about every major Federation institution there is."

Spock believed he knew what he was implying.

"The San Francisco Ship Yards have had a branch in Riverside, Iowa for approximately 24.95 solar years."

"More like fifteen from my point of view, but yeah. Don't worry though, there's not much point hacking into anywhere if you don't understand the language anything's written in."

Had he been told this even a few hours ago, such a statement may have been reassuring. As it was, he was now trying to estimate, based on his limited knowledge, how many computers on Vulcan had held an open link to Starfleet Headquarters apart from the VSA. Unlike most Terran Universities, the Vulcan Science Academy not only taught students but had also held most of Vulcan's defense technology and other security concerns.

Surely, any rational being would know better than to hack an institution which contained large amounts of military data?

"JT, what precisely was your reason for learning Vulcan?"

Unfortunately for his peace of mind, the human merely smiled up at him.

"See, this is why I've decided I like you, Spock. Speaking of which, I owe you an apology."

He would have to discuss the matter with his Captain when they recovered him. For the moment he merely accepted the deflection.

"Your reactions were perfectly understandable, sir," he said, attempting to reassure him. "It must be thoroughly disconcerting to awaken bereft of any familiar figures, only to be informed that you are not in the time frame you should logically be in."

"Trust me, familiar figures? Really wouldn't have been reassuring. And I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, not about any of it. I'm sorry."

"There is no offense where none is taken," he quoted in the original Vulcan and his future Captain grinned, obviously recognizing the Surakian proverb.

"Thanks. So, when do I get a tour of this place?"

This was the exact situation both he and Doctor McCoy had anticipated ever since the current situation came to light. Unfortunately, he had yet to determine how to deflect the potential disaster with any probable success.

"JT, as I'm sure you are already aware, the risk of temporal paradoxes must be minimized," he attempted to placate. The youth before him shrugged, as if such a thing was expected and perfectly reasonable.

"Okay."

The Captain's easy agreement was not reassuring.

"The amount of information you have been privy to thus far has already put the timeline into jeopardy."

"Sure, gotta protect the timeline," he said, his expression open and honest. Spock had witnessed this precise act being used to great effect on numerous authority figures, including most of the Admiralty.

"Even the smallest of technological changes you would observe, however inadvertently, could potentially change your future actions." he continued to argue.

JT nodded again.

"I understand."

There was no hint of deception in any of his body language. Everything Spock knew about humans in general led him to believe that JT intended to remain precisely where he was without even studying the advanced medical equipment within his reach.

"You plan on escaping from the sickbay and exploring the ship anyway."

"When you say things like that, I really start to believe you know me," replied an admiring JT. "I'll cut you a deal. If you come with, I'll let you choose where we go first."

"Who's going where first?" demanded a voice behind them and Spock froze. It had been made abundantly clear to the entire crew within the first month of shipping out that assisting the Captain's escape from medical care was strictly prohibited. Doctor McCoy had been rather adamant on the matter, and it had only taken until the Captain had joined the first away-team that his reasoning had become apparent. The entire bridge crew had been rather shocked to discover that Jim could still make command grade decisions with that much blood loss.

Fortunately, JT answered instead.

"Bonesey! We're going exploring, you coming with?" he asked in a cheerful tone both adults found eerily familiar.

Spock quirked an inquiring eyebrow at the CMO and JT watched in confusion as the other human blushed slightly.

"Apparently I was doomed from the start," grumbled the doctor. "Two minutes into a conversation and the damn kid was already calling me sawbones."

"Indeed?"

It took JT a moment to realize what the two were referring to but when he did, he barely stopped himself from cursing. He should've realized that older-him had started that nickname… and the thought of 'older-him' wasn't getting any less creepy.

"Hey, you ever heard of a modern doctor that doesn't like to use a tricorder?" he grinned, making sure none of his unease showed through. "Next thing you know, he'll be calling himself 'just an old, country doctor'."

He immediately bristled and JT was certain he'd nailed it. That guess had been a bit of a long shot but the Doc obviously took pride in his roots. It took real effort to maintain that sort of accent when no one around you spoke that way, most people just slowly slipped into the almost tone-flat Standard without even realizing it.

"I'll get my hypos," McCoy growled.

"I believe you were investigating the away-teams scans, Doctor?"

"Yeah, there's a couple of anomalies," he answered Spock as he carefully chose a selection of sleek hyposprays and stuffed them in a nearby case. "The computer's isolating them, but it'll take half an hour or so. In the meantime, no one's going anywhere without medical supervision. Understand me, JT?"

"I'm not sure we know each other well enough for these dependency issues of yours, Bones."

"JT," he said in a threatening tone.

"No ditching the watchdog. Got it," he said and Spock honestly believed that the doctor's resulting growl did indeed resemble that typical of the average _canis familiaris_. As always, his Captain's response to any indication of danger was unique and the youth just smiled. "So, Spock has first choice on where we're going."

"Lead on, MacDuff."

Spock watched as JT turned to glare at the good doctor and noted the odd smirk McCoy gave in return.

"It's 'Lay on, MacDuff', and you so did that on purpose," accused JT.

"Can't prove it."

Obviously, the abruptly increased age difference had done little to change the strange nature of the Captain and CMO's relationship.

"Gentlemen," he interrupted before JT could respond to McCoy's taunt. "If you'll follow me, I have chosen our first destination."

He believed his future Captain would enjoy this.

"Hold on a moment," said JT and they watched as he walked over to the bio-bed containing the still sleeping Chekov. "Pasha? Pasha wake up for a second."

Spock quirked an eyebrow at the doctor but he only shrugged. Until ten minutes ago he had no idea the kid spoke Russian either. Obviously, the teenage Jim was a bit more open with his talents than their Jim was.

"JT?" murmured Pasha, squinting against the light as he tried to fight the sedative.

"Yeah, it's me," he replied. "I'm just going for a walk. I'll be back in an hour or so."

The young Chekov forced himself to wake up just that little bit more so he could open his eyes.

"You're alright?" he checked, worried despite the way sleep was still calling to him. "The scary man didn't hurt you?"

"I'm fine Pasha, just going to have a look around. You go back to sleep and I'll be back soon alright?"

"Alright," he mumbled, finally falling back unconscious. JT smiled down at him and tucked the blanket securely around Pasha. When he turned back, the two 'Fleet officers were staring at him. He ignored their questioning expressions and switched back to Standard, which was a lot easier now he wasn't fighting off unconsciousness himself.

"Ok, let's go."


	3. Chapter 3

I still say that it makes _no_ sense to have to spend an hour going through my formatting just because ff has a grudge against Word, but such as it be.

Also, no chapter would be complete without me thanking Spockaholic. Seriously, she's awesome.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three<strong>

The good doctor had obviously guessed their destination as soon as he chose the floor in the turbo lift, but despite JT's apparent knowledge of the Enterprise, he had not recognized what Deck 4 was generally used for and repeatedly insisted that he disliked surprises. While Spock knew this to be true, gifts were to be anticipated and he was certain that this was an appropriate gesture.

Despite himself, Spock did feel a flicker of trepidation before he keyed his security code into the number pad by the door but quickly strengthened his shields against such failings. There was no logical reason for such an emotion. Whether JT responded positively to the surprise or not should have no impact on himself. _Kaiidth_. What was.

JT remained silent as the door opened, revealing a small room with one wall entirely composed of transparent aluminum, exposing a section of space to the viewer. The two Starfleet Officers allowed him to precede them, McCoy concentrated on the opaque sidewall but entered the room without any hesitation, and let the door close behind them.

For a few moments, JT merely stared at the stars in awe but eventually he raised his hand as if to caress one of the many points of light.

"It's beautiful Spock," he whispered. "Thank you."

"You are most welcome, JT."

The trio stood unmoving for several minutes, JT fixated on the expanse before him, Spock content with his Captain's response, and McCoy silently chanted the bones of the Andorian skeletal structure as he tried to ignore the vast void threatening to engulf them. Eventually JT turned back to face them, his pleasure turning to concern when he saw how the doctor was trembling.

"Come on. Next stop's my quarters. I want to check on something."

"As you wish," agreed Spock, bowing his head.

McCoy needed no further encouragement. He had come a long way in five years. Not so long ago he would've had a panic attack at the doorway. After Jim's patient coaching he'd managed to pass the Fleet mandatory space flight but had still bolted out of the simulation when it was over. These days he could calmly walk over to the door and enter in his passcode without his fingers slipping once. One day, he might actually be able to stand in that room without a qualm. Today was not that day and he was the first one out of the door by several meters.

"You ok there, Sawbones?"

"Fine."

"You sure?"

"I'm fine," he gritted out. Before JT could ask again, in which case the doctor would have felt perfectly vindicated in biting his head off, Spock interrupted.

"Your quarters are one deck down, JT."

McCoy blanched at the reminder that his own quarters were so close to _that_ and promised himself that he'd be sleeping in his office again for the next couple of days until he could forget it again.

JT merely gestured for Spock to precede him.

As his usual place was by his Captain's side, he was somewhat uncomfortable with this but reminded himself that it was only logical for him to lead in an environment where JT had only a basic knowledge of the layout. They continued in the suddenly uncomfortable silence until they reached the senior officer's quarters, and Spock, McCoy and JT were all pleased when they finally reached the correct door.

Both Spock and McCoy noted the piercing glance JT gave the name plaque by the side of the door but said nothing as he entered and began to examine his surroundings intently.

Something he saw must have satisfied him because he headed straight towards the shelf containing most of his modest collection of books and picked one seemingly by random. It became obvious that the book had been in Jim's possession for longer than either of them had realized when he quickly skipped to a page three-quarters of the way through and stared at the primitive, pressed paper-mulch.

Whatever he found there caused his shoulders to tighten and he quickly replaced the book exactly where he had found it. Spock had always assumed that the books were arranged by random in the manner so many humans favored, but perhaps not. Their order certainly seemed familiar to the younger version of their Captain, an event that was highly unlikely if there was no underlying pattern to the chaos. It was another question to ask when Jim was found.

In a seemingly erratic manner, JT continued to assess various parts of the small rooms. He ran his hands carefully over the unworn end of a well-used stylus sitting by his personal computer. He picked up a small black rock and tossed it into the air four times before finally setting it back exactly where he'd found it. He proceeded to then check under the small desk and second shelf down on the left before finally moving to lie across the bed.

"Alright, I'll admit it. This place is mine," he said as he studied the small collection of books immediately by his bed. "I haven't even seen some of this stuff in years. I definitely wouldn't pull them out of storage unless this was a long term thing."

Spock and Leonard shared a look, but it was Spock that asked the question.

"Storage? Why are your belongings not in your current residence?"

"Older-me doesn't talk much about his past, does he?" he commented. "I haven't had a home since I was thirteen… and that didn't end well."

"Then where do you live?"

"Here and there. Before I was here, I was settling down for the night in an old abandoned train station." He sighed at their expressions. "It's not as bad as you're thinking. I'm in motels just as often."

The idea that this human could possibly be uncared for at such an age was almost unthinkable. By Vulcan custom, most children became adults by the age of twelve and the successful completion of their _kahs'wan_, but even so, the majority continued in their family's house until their late twenties depending on certain… biological rhythms. He had understood that Terran culture followed a similar pattern.

"Surely your mother worries for you?" he asked.

"Her? Spock, the last time I even spoke to that woman was three years ago, when the doctors bullied her into it. I don't know about you, but when someone doesn't care when everyone around me says I'm gonna die, I kinda assume they don't care much if I live."

McCoy was the first to recover from the statement.

"What?"

JT shrugged. "They gave me a fifteen percent chance of surviving the surgery to fix some organ damage. They must have told the Comm. Officer on her ship why they were calling, cause next thing I know she's on the line. That lasted maybe twenty really awkward seconds. When she hadn't called back two months later, I got the hint."

While his two future friends stood in shock, JT carefully rearranged himself so that he was lying almost in the center of the bed with his head exactly on the pillow. He shuffled about for a few seconds before judging that this spot was about right. The other-him must have a couple of inches across the shoulders on him because the imprint he'd left didn't feel right but it was close enough, especially when he realized that if he just looked to the left he could see every title of the books slightly behind him. It was creepy, but this really was how he'd arrange his perfect bedroom.

Still frowning slightly, he leant over and reached for the hidden compartment he knew should be just under the bed. It was maybe half an inch further away from where he could comfortably reach, but that made sense. Human males were still growing up until they were about twenty and the simple tap combination was easy enough. It was the same sort of pattern he'd used as a rudimentary password on his first touch PADD back when he was ten.

He had to stretch a bit further than he would have liked to grab one of the many hermetically sealed packages inside and when he finally looked at it he didn't recognize the label. His frown deepened but he carefully opened the wrapping and took a cautious bite from a corner. It took a few milliseconds for him to realize that it tasted vaguely familiar.

"They make these in apple now? It almost tastes edible." He stared at the food in mistrust and re-sealed the wrapper. "That's… actually, that's just really, really creepy. When the hell did they make these things taste like food?"

Bones stared.

He recognized the packaging on what JT had just eaten. It wasn't comfort food. As far as the medical profession was concerned, it didn't really count as food at all. It was an emergency ration. It was a highly concentrated, completely synthesized, block of complex molecule coils of carbohydrates, sugars, basic vitamins and immune boosters. It barely even unraveled in time to be digested, unless it was eaten a crumb at a time.

Basically, it was someone's last chance, hermetically sealed. The only time he could think of anyone using the stuff, was years ago during a conference, when a colleague had recommended the rations for patients with certain eating disorders. Even Starfleet thought they borrowed too much against future resources to be useful in most cases.

Those things shouldn't be in anyone's quarters, and certainly not Jim's.

"JT," softly asked McCoy, trying his best to be as non-confrontational as possible. "Why've you got rations hidden in your room?"

"Hey, do _not _knock emergency rations," he grinned as he easily replaced the item. "One of those can keep a person going almost a week, if you're careful."

"And willing to risk malnutrition? Jim, tell me you're eating more than that?"

Bones couldn't quite place the look on the teenager's face. It was almost amused, but in a bitter way he had never known Jim to be. He knew his friend had issues- anyone who actually paid attention to the idiot and bothered to look past some of those masks could see that- but this? Hoarding emergency rations in his room? Sleeping rough at seventeen? His mom not wanting to know? This wasn't just issues, this needed a complete psychological evaluation, and this boy was only five years younger than when he'd first met him. How could he not have noticed this?

Jim got him through the aftermath of his divorce, listened to his moaning and forced him back out among people. Now he was finding out that all the times he'd thought he'd returned the favor and helped Jim, he might not have even scratched the surface.

"Ok," drawled JT, confused by the doctor's obvious mental anguish. These people were just weird. "Either you are like the worst doctor, in the history of doctors _ever, _or sometime between my-now and this-now, I did some serious hacking and sealed a lot of files I'm not even meant to know exist."

JT resettled against the pillow as he considered just how much work he'd have to do to pull off a stunt like that. It was do-able at least and it reminded him of something else he'd come to this room to check.

"Computer?"

"Working," replied the synthesized female voice.

"Access Captain's Personal Log."

"Accessing."

"Replay… uh, fourteenth entry, coded 'star shape'."

The warm, more familiar tones of their Captain immediately began to echo across the room.

-Captain's personal log, Stardate 2259.0. So, today I got totally screwed over… and the bastards didn't even buy me a drink first. Fucking milk runs. I hate milk runs. I've got the best crew ever, the most beautiful lady in the galaxy and they've got us on fucking milk runs. I mean we are getting a lot of drill time in so that's good but still… Least they can't keep passing us over. I mean _Enterprise_ is still officially the flagship. They've got a month, _maybe _two, before they'll have to either throw us a bone or downgrade her, and that'd be a PR nightmare. I swear if it weren't for Chris, I'd think the promotion to Admiral did something to people, liquefy their brains or something. Oh! Reminder to self, I've got to get something for the old man when we pull into Starbase 2 tomorrow. It'll take a good three months to get anything sent back to New Vulcan so if I don't get it now it'll be late for his birthday and that's just not happening. I can't let him think he's all alone out here. I've got plenty of time. Scotty says he'll need fifteen hours docked to make those unspecified engine-repairs-that-I-know-nothing-about. Plausible deniability aside, if he doesn't keep a close eye on those Rebshan Fluxes and blows us all up, I am so going to kill him. End log-

"Computer, how often is the phrase 'Old Man' recorded at least once in all personal log entries coded 'star shape'?" asked JT.

He got the reference to 'lady' meaning the ship. He'd assume from what the sawbones had been telling him that Chris was Christopher Pike, apparently an Admiral these days, which was pretty impressive. At a guess, he'd say 'Scotty' would be the Chief Engineer. He would have said Chief Science Officer as they tended to be a bit more adventurous in modifying their ships but he'd been assuming from the uniform that the CSO was Spock.

What he didn't recognize was the 'old man' code. Traditionally, that was what the crew called their captain or immediate Admiral, but that wasn't something he could imagine himself doing. Not with his family life.

"Working. Key phrase 'Old Man' occurs at least once in 63.4 percent of all log entries coded 'star shape'."

"That's interesting." Interesting and creepy. It was amazing how often that combination was coming up since this possible psychotic delusion had started. "Either of you two care to tell me who the hell this old man is?"

"You going to explain why there's rations in your room?" asked McCoy.

JT quickly ran an assessing gaze over his supposedly future-friends before mentally shrugging. It looked like he'd have to find his answers later.

"I think that's one of the thing's you really should be talking to older-me about. It's his room," he replied as charmingly as possible. He wasn't entirely sure the sawbones bought it but he did seem fairly used to the deflection and sighed at him.

"Please… just tell me you're eating. Please?"

"Bones, calm down," he said. "I promise you; ever since I set out on my own, I've been eating at least two semi-balanced meals a day. My calorie count does not dip below seventeen hundred on average, and I even occasionally eat green things." He smiled again and Bones was relieved to see the more honest expression. "And I promise I will keep that up until I meet you sometime in my twenties, and you can supervise my eating habits yourself, ok?"

The doctor nodded and resolved to keep a closer eye on his friend. He'd always known that Jim had food issues, but then so did most people whose food allergies numbered in the dozens. He just never thought about asking. That had changed. His planned conversation about the holes in Jim's medical charts had just extended to a whole host of things he'd never asked about before and Jim was going to answer.

"Come on, I want to get back to sickbay before Pasha wakes up."

That statement was enough to completely derail any previous trains of thought and McCoy stared at the teenager.

"_Back _to sickbay?"

JT rolled his eyes at him as he ushered everyone back out of the room.

"Bones, try seeing things from my perspective for a moment. Say you get mysteriously thrown into the future and introduced to where you live… which has all your things in it and lots of other cool stuff too, like books you've been planning to buy for years. It's really, really creepy. I might hate sickbay but at least it's familiarly disquieting instead of confusing me in entirely new and never before tried ways."

The explanation seemed to satisfy him and the trio walked on in a surprisingly less awkward silence than before. JT didn't realize it, but at least some of that newfound ease was because he'd automatically started leading the way back to the turbo lift, leaving Spock and McCoy to fall into their customary places at either side of him.

It was not until they were almost back at to the sickbay that Spock finally broke the silence.

"JT, may I ask a question?"

"You can ask whatever you want," he replied. The scientist caught the subtle warning and nodded to himself.

"What is the meaning of the phrase 'star shape'?"

"Now that's an easy one," he said, relieved. "When I was little, my brother Sam tried to get me into the habit of keeping a diary. It's one of those things all 'Fleet brats get taught, something Dad taught him. Anyway, he gave me one of those small things with the entire week cramped into two sides of A5 and, being young, my writing wouldn't fit between the lines. So I improvised. I drew shapes instead, kind of my own little code for how the day had gone. A tree if I'd been hiding, a sun if I was tired. Simple things, really. If a day was good, nothing brilliant but just nice and peaceful, I'd draw stars. So looking back that day was a star shape."

"Logical," approved the scientist. Before he could say anything further, their small group triggered the sickbay's door sensor and immediately a small figure in oversized medical scrubs charged towards them.

"JT you're back!" yelled Pasha in frantic Russian as he wrapped himself around the teen's legs and squeezed. "I thought you were dead but they said you weren't and I was so scared and you were gone and-"

"Pasha, Pasha, Pasha," he laughed as he untangled the hysterical child and hauled him into his arms. Pasha immediately snuggled in deeper, his head tucking into JT's shoulder as he held him close. "It's alright, I'm fine and no one's dead, ok?" he whispered, keeping to Standard. "Don't you remember me saying goodbye?"

"I thought I dream it," he muttered.

Spock raised an incredulous eyebrow at such emotional behavior but McCoy just sighed and after making sure that JT was alright, walked off to harangue his nurses. The three standing by the child's previous bio-bed looked flustered, two of them still pointlessly reaching for the escaped child. McCoy made a mental note to expose them to a day-care sometime soon. His staff were the only medical care available on this doomed tub of bolts, and he needed them to be able to deal with any patient they had. Children included.

JT awkwardly started walking to his own assigned bed, politely waving off Spock's offer of assistance with the heavy weight as he tried to keep Pasha stable. Not that he thought the kid would drop, even if his hands did slip. For such a little guy, Pasha had a tight grip.

"Not a dream, Pasha. I just went for a walk with Commander Spock and Doctor McCoy."

"But they are mean and the scary one hurt you!" Pasha whispered, glaring past JT's shoulder at the officer behind them.

Spock felt a slight unease at the mistrust in the child's face. He knew why Pavel Chekov had singled him out as 'scary' and while JT had apologized for his anger, he had yet to make a verbal contrition for his own unbecoming conduct.

"Scary? No, that's just Spock. He's a friend."

"Then why did he hurt you?"

JT sat on the bio-bed, settling the younger child on his lap and slowly running a gentle hand down his hair and upper back.

"We were just arguing, Pasha," he soothed. "I shouldn't have been out of bed before the doctor said I could be."

"That is why you fell down?"

JT nodded, although Spock did take note of how he did not verbally confirm the child's assumption.

"Everything's fine. Now why don't you let the nice nurse here check you over and when she's done we'll play a game all right?"

Pasha turned towards the blue-skirted Andorian that had been sent over to retrieve her young patient and her antenna twitched under the attention.

"Hi Pavel," she nervously trilled, focusing on her charge rather than the First Officer and strangely de-aged Captain. "I promise we won't take very long. Then you can play."

Pasha stared at her until her antenna started twitching again and then turned back to JT.

"What game?"

"What would you like?" JT, grinning at Pasha's suspicious question. The kid had his priorities. He could respect that.

"Math."

"Math?" At Pasha's glare, he shrugged. Obviously, adults' reactions to that subject was a sore point. "Math it is, then. I'll try and find something new, alright?"

"Yes," he agreed in a small voice as he allowed the nurse to take his hand and lead him back to the other side of the room.

Almost immediately, JT picked up the PADD he'd left on his bio-bed and began flicking through the folders. Spock watched curiously, once more noting his expertise with the younger Chekov and adding it the many subjects he still intended to discuss with his Captain. Perhaps Jim would find the explanation of his experience with young children to be an easier topic than some of the other issues his younger self had revealed.

"May I ask what you are looking for, JT?"

"Something that should be on my personal account," he muttered. "Ah! Here it is. Yeah that'll do. He's the navigator you mentioned, right?"

"Yes, Ensign Pavel Chekov is a valuable member of the senior bridge staff."

"If he makes Chief Navigator by his teens, he can handle a few advanced programs. Besides, when I was his age I hated all the math programs the school had. They were always really dumbed down."

"I am aware of the failings of the Terran schooling structure," shortly replied Spock. Considering most of his classmates and students at the Academy had been from Terran backgrounds, he was been well aware of how lax their usual standards were, especially when compared to his own school days. "In addition to Vulcan and Russian, how many languages do you speak?"

JT stared at the scientist for a second before mentally shrugging. He might have decided to stop revealing so much, but surely languages weren't privileged information. He was on a Starfleet vessel. They frowned on anyone not speaking Standard and his language proficiency might never have come up when there was probably a communication officer around constantly.

Not that he actually believed any of this was real now they were out of those quarters. Captain by twenty-something? If an officer made Captain by forty it was impressive.

"Not that many fluently," he hedged just in case. "Maybe another dozen I can hold my own in and a few others I can at least understand. I'm working on Orion Body Language at the moment, but it's really difficult getting any videos on that, and each House has it's own set of symbols, so that's going kinda slow."

"Body language? I assume you do not simply refer to posture and subconscious movements?"

"No, Spock," he said, obviously amused. "It goes back a couple of centuries to the start of the Syndicate. You know, how they'd sell the women as slaves and then they'd work from the inside to get everyone around them hooked on their pheromones? They needed some way to communicate without letting their 'masters' know they were sentient and hand gestures would be a bit too obvious. So they used their entire bodies. It's one of the many reasons why the slave girls were always dancing."

"So that they could be in almost constant communication with their group without arousing suspicion," he conjectured.

JT nodded, pleased that Spock had understood the concept so quickly.

"Yep. I mean, dancing's a huge part of Orion culture anyway, so I guess it just made sense to them. The males use more subtle gestures so that half's easy to learn. It's mostly just questions on how many people the infiltrators have enslaved. The problem is that ever since the Federation destroyed the Syndicate, it's been falling out of favor. Soon no one's going to speak it outside of festivals."

"Then you are attempting to assist in preserving the information."

"Nothing so noble, I'm just curious," he dismissed. Before Spock could comment, a grim looking Doctor McCoy interrupted the pair.

"What's up Doc?" JT asked in a strange accent that Spock was unable to identify. "Time travels making my insides liquefy?"

"Course not," scoffed the doctor. Despite his denial, he didn't meet either of his friends eyes. McCoy's normal motions were forced into stillness, his shoulders tight as he stared at his PADD. "Can you describe for me exactly how you got here?"

"I don't remember exactly," JT replied, intently watching the sawbones. "I'd just finished off my cheeseburger and was settling down for the night, like I said. I remember laying down my sleeping bag and then it's a bit… blurry, but I think I fell asleep. Next thing I know, I woke up in medical scrubs with some clothes right by my bed and you standing five feet away, glaring at your PADD."

"Any pain? Dizziness? Bright lights?"

"No, no and no. Just blurry, like I was already half asleep."

McCoy nodded, still not looking up as he typed in the information.

"That's what the others have said, too. Everything was clear until just before they woke up."

"Something wrong, Bones?" asked JT, his voice light and unconcerned. His body posture was at odds with his tone and Spock found himself carefully scanning the sickbay for whatever threat the Captain had intuited. He could see no reason for the sudden change but he had not required very long to realize that despite the seeming illogic of the fact, his Captain was often correct in situations with limited data.

"Just a few anomalies, nothing to worry about," McCoy said before finally looking up from his PADD to stare at the First Officer. As with many incidents regarding his human colleagues, Spock believed he had failed to understand an emotional communication that had taken place in the last few seconds. "Spock, I need to go down to the planet and take some readings, find out if some of the results are being caused by our proximity to whatever's down there."

"Doctor, as we do not know-"

"Spock," he interrupted before visibly forcing himself to calm down. "I need to go down to the planet."

Strangely, the temporally-displaced JT seemed to have relaxed at the good doctor's uncharacteristic actions. Almost as if a suspicion had been confirmed. It was that, more than Doctor McCoy's agitation, that made Spock reassess.

"Very well."

"Maybe I should come too," announced JT.

Bones swallowed, his fingers tightening on his PADD but his voice remained calm as he demurred.

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"If you're worried about something down on the planet affecting us, then it makes sense to see if me actually being down there makes it worse," he said, strangely cheerful against the implications.

"JT-"

"Before it starts affecting Pasha."

Both officers recognized the tone of voice. It was most often heard when a hostile force was threatening a member of the Captain's away team besides himself, or when he believed that an Admiral's or diplomats order placed the crew in unnecessary jeopardy and Spock allowed himself an idle moment of curiosity. If the Starfleet Command track had not taught the Captain so many of the skills he used to defend his crew, where precisely had he learned such habits?

"Alright JT, alright."

Spock quirked an eyebrow but did not otherwise correct the good doctor on the limits of his ability to make such decisions in his capacity as the CMO.

"I assume that haste is desirable?"

"Yeah," murmured McCoy before looking back up at the First Officer. "Yes Spock, quicker is a hell of a lot better."

"Then I shall alert Lieutenant Sulu that he will remain in command until our return."

Both McCoy and JT looked shocked but as always it was their future Captain that spoke first.

"Spock, you don't have to come too."

"As the effects of the phenomena may prove harmful, it is only logical to minimize the exposure to the rest of the crew. According to regulation, the CMO or Federation civilians may not transport to a possibly unsafe location without an escort from security or other authorized personnel."

JT smiled at him, seemingly pleased and as always, Spock carefully filed the events that had led to such a response. He was certain he would eventually gather enough information to begin to correlate such responses and provoke them purposely.

"Let me guess, you happen to be authorized personnel?" he asked and Spock nodded. He had taken care of that problem before he had even known his Captain.

"Of course."

"Alright. Let me just give this to Pasha and we can go."

For the first time since he'd seen the anomalies rendered by the computer, Bones was worried by something other than the results on his PADD. He knew Jim Kirk and this JT was not that different. Who knew what the idiot believed was suitable to give to a young child. If they weren't careful, they'd be returning Pavel to his parents able to swear in nine languages.

"Give what to him?"

JT ignored him and darted past the bustling med-staff, leaving the doctor to glare after him. He hated it when the kid just ran out in the middle of a conversation like that.

On the other side of the room, the nurses had just finished the rudimentary tests necessary after a young child had just awoken from sedation, this time with far less screaming than the last attempt. Before Pasha could begin insisting that they were meant to give him a lollipop, he caught sight of JT and grinned.

"JT!"

"Hey Pasha," he grinned back, his suspicions ignored for now. "I've downloaded something for you but I've got to leave again, ok?"

His face fell and JT felt a flicker of amusement at how easily Pasha's emotions changed. If he wasn't careful he'd end up just adopting the little brat, he was just too adorable.

"You said you will play with me!" he whined and JT sat down next to him to pull him into a hug.

"I know," he whispered into Pasha's curls. "But I've got some things I've got to get done."

"Where are you going?"

"Off the ship."

He immediately pulled away from JT's side to stare up at him.

"Take me with you!"

"I can't," he said, the apology clear in his voice.

Pasha deflated and allowed himself to be pulled back into the hug. Adults were always saying he had to stay, he was too young to go anywhere and it wasn't fair. One day he'd show them all.

"You're going to have to stay here for me. Will you be good for the nurses?"

"Yes."

"Thank you. Now if you don't like the game I've downloaded, you don't have to play it."

"You think it being too difficult for me," he glared and JT restrained his urge to ruffle the Russian's curls. "I am not stupid."

"I know, but it's a very a grown-up game so if you find it boring or something, just ask one of the med-staff to show you how to access the library database. They've got lots of things on there, okay? Please, Pasha?"

"Yes, JT."

"Good. I'll try and be back soon."

"Yes, JT."

The Chief Medical Officer glared at him as JT made his way back over to them. He might not have the hobgoblin's hearing, but he'd caught enough of that conversation to be worried. Specifically, the words 'grown-up game'.

"Please tell me you didn't just give that kid porn!"

"Why Bones! I am shocked and dismayed that you would ever think such a thing!" He managed to hold onto his mock-indignation for a few seconds before laughing. "Nah, it's just a programming tutorial thing. I kind of make them whenever I build a new system. I used to publish some of them on forums and I guess I just stayed in the habit over the years. They're meant for someone with a bit of computer knowledge though so I don't know if he'll start getting overwhelmed or not."

"Ensign Chekov has a very high natural IQ and a surprisingly logical mind," replied Spock.

"What he means is, the kid's smart as a whip."

"Doctor, I fail to understand how comparing the ensign with an archaic Terran device used to direct livestock gives an accurate impression of his intelligence."

"Look, you walking bunch of circuits! Just because you don't-"

"Guys," interrupted JT. This had the feel of a very old and long running argument that was better off stopped before they built up too much steam. "Shouldn't we get going?"


	4. Chapter 4

As I'm sure everyone already expects, the first thing I'm going to say is thanks to my Beta Spockaholic. You have no idea how many times she had to read through something that made no sense. The fact that my paragraphs even have sentences is down to her.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Four<strong>

The station was unremarkable.

This was logical. The ship's sensor array had reported such a thing before and after their away team's disappearance, and the Enterprise's sensors were far more advanced than anything available on a simple handheld tricorder. However, in the 1.83 solar years since the Enterprise's official maiden voyage, it had become common to expect inexplicable phenomena to be shielded from their ship's sensors and only detectable at closer distances.

Such assumptions were the sign of a disorganized mind. Obviously when this event was over, Spock would have to spend more time than he had expected and enter a deeper level of meditation than usual. Many of his peers had assumed that his long association with humans would cause mental degradation; he would not allow such a thing to become true.

His thoughts were once more disrupted by Doctor McCoy's increasingly vehement exclamations that they should have found something by now. It was highly distracting and unnecessary.

Before he could inform the good doctor of this, a curiously high-pitched intermittent sound became apparent. A brief interval of time later, it lowered in pitch and JT stopped and cocked his head in the alien manner humans used to indicate they were listening to something.

It continued to deepen until Doctor McCoy noticed and looked up, a mere 3.2 seconds after the noise first became apparent.

"What the hell is th-"

The sensation that followed was entirely unlike a transporter.

The Federation had spent a great deal of time and resources in the past century ensuring that transporters were not only safe for sentient transport, but were inoffensive to use. The same care had not been given to this alien technology and his nervous system was disassembled in agony. Spock's last thought was an illogical hope that they would be reassembled safely.

The next thing he knew was his Captain's voice.

"-ot something!"

Spock immediately identified the smell of burning circuits followed by the unmistakable sound of electrical sparking. It was a chain of events that was all too familiar to any member of the Enterprose.

It took a truly unreasonable amount of time for his eyelids to begin responding to his commands once more, but when they did, it was to reveal his Captain and Lieutenant Garrard glaring at a gently smoking, dark grey object that was presumably a computer terminal. He immediately realized why this was not a likely event, but before Spock could comment, a voice spoke from his left.

"Angels and ministers of grace defend us!"

At JT's odd phrase, the Captain seemed to recover his composure and smiled at his younger self.

"Well, I go by Jim, not Hamlet, but other than _that_… totally with you."

While the two Kirks were talking, Garrard moved to help the semi-conscious doctor, giving JT a wide berth. For a few seconds, McCoy allowed Garrard's help until he realized what was going on.

"Get off me!" He demanded, shrugging off Garrard's hand. "I can stand by myself!"

"Sir," calmly replied the engineering lieutenant, used to the senior staff's eccentricities as he tried to regain his grip and stop the doctor from falling backwards. "You should take it easy, that thing really scrambles your brain."

"I said I'm fine, goddamnit! Stop fussing! Better yet go bother Spock!"

A raised eyebrow from the aforementioned scientist dissuaded any such notions from Garrard's thoughts, and he finally stepped back as McCoy, Spock and JT stood up with varying degrees of steadiness. The noise must have summoned the rest of the missing away-team as Ensign Chekov and Lieutenant Sims came running through a previously camouflaged door.

"Commander!" cried the ensign as he stopped, not noticing how Sims almost ran into his back. "You have come to rescue us!"

"Hey! I thought I was doing pretty well here," said a mock- insulted Jim. "Sims, you thought so, right?" Sims tried to cover his smile and nod at the same time. It didn't work very well. Thankfully for his professionalism, Ensign Chekov answered instead.

"Of course you are, Captain," he soothed. "But I am thinking that the Commander's communicator might still be working, yes?"

Spock and McCoy immediately checked, both silently blaming the unpleasant beam down for not thinking of their communicators earlier. After so many away missions that never seemed to go quite right, neither of them were surprised when the small devices failed to even chirp.

Bones just shrugged, but the Chief Science Officer quickly ran through several checks before determining that the device still had full power and should work. Either they were too far below ground for its range, which would not explain why the communicators failed to connect with each other, or else there was something stopping their communicators from broadcasting at all.

Before Spock could communicate his conclusions to his Captain, JT stepped out from behind him and into Ensign Chekov's line of sight.

"You must be Pasha!" he cheerfully announced. "You know, you make a really cute five year old."

_"Bozhe moi."_

"You can just call me JT." The two versions of their Captain shared an undecipherable look.

"You sure?" quietly asked Jim. His teenage self shrugged.

"I'm not all that comfortable being 'Jim'. Not yet anyway."

"You-you are-" stuttered the shocked ensign and JT's grin returned.

"James Tiberius Kirk, straight from 2249."

"Not exactly," said Jim. For a moment, his counterpart tensed, and the two James T. Kirks shared another strange look. Obviously JT was satisfied with whatever had been communicated, as he relaxed, his smile almost gentle as he shook his head.

"How did I know you were going to say something like that?" he asked, and the Captain shrugged, his rueful expression matching his counterpart's smile in a highly disconcerting manner.

"Because we have a deep understanding of how our life works? But this isn't time travel."

"Then what the hell is it?" demanded McCoy and Lieutenant Garrard took another step away from the man. Who ever claimed red-shirts were insane had obviously never met a blue-shirt from the Enterprise.

"A giant copy machine," Jim whimsically replied, and McCoy's glare deepened. Before he could demand any clarification, the Captain turned to the crewmembers he'd originally beamed down with. "Chekov, why don't you go back to the main computer. Garrard and Sims, go with him. I don't want anyone left alone down here."

"Yes, Captain."

The away team showed nothing but professionalism as they filed out of the room, the far door melting back into the wall when it closed. Jim waited until they were gone before turning back to his friends and younger doppelganger.

"Come on, you should see this," he said, abruptly walking towards a different section of unremarkable, white wall.

Spock subtly checked the power meter on his protocol mandated phaser. He wasn't entirely certain what was going on or what information his Captain and his younger self seemed to have shared, but he had recognized Jim's expression before he had turned away. Whatever had been found down here might not strictly be hostile but the Captain was displeased all the same.

"Jim," pleaded Leonard as he rushed after his friend. "What's going on? What the hell did you mean, 'copy machine'?"

"Hey, I was being serious," he insisted as the section of wall broke apart at their approach. It was an interesting technology, even Spock could not see how it was achieved although he assumed the walls rearranged their molecular density in some manner.

"There's all these sensors covering the planet, whenever they detect life they beam it down here and a machine copies it. It's meant to be exact. Scars, broken bones, even down to personality and memory," explained Jim.

That did not sound logical.

"Then why are the copies not at the same development as the originals?" asked Spock and JT shot him a mild glare.

"Ok, I don't think I want to be called a 'copy' anymore."

The Captain ignored his younger self.

"So that whoever picked them up panicked and didn't send anyone else down to investigate."

The explanation did not make any more sense to Spock than the original premise. Surely if a person had the technology to accurately replicate a person even down to memory engrams and personality traits, it would be more logical to completely duplicate the chosen individual and leave their companions completely unaware of any change. That was assuming the unethical goal of experimenting on sentient beings. Unless of course, there was a difficulty maintaining such a deception.

"That is an illogical assumption," he quietly replied, choosing to ignore his newborn suspicion. The Captain would inform them in due time if he was correct.

"Yep. The guy who designed all this was nuts," he answered with what even Spock could recognize as a bleak smile, despite the unfamiliar nature of such an expression on his Captain's face.

"Then there is an intelligence behind the machinery?" queried Spock and Jim shrugged.

"Sort of," he said, absently checking one of the hallways few crossroads for the marks he and his away team had been setting up since they'd beamed down. "He's been dead for a couple of centuries, it's all on automatic. There's a couple of journal entries. Mostly typical mad scientist stuff: 'they called me mad; I'll show them mad,' and a couple of rants on how 'it'd be evil _not _to experiment!' So I'm kinda assuming this guy got exiled for unethical behavior. I don't know if he was this unhinged _before _he got sent here, but somewhere along the way he just snapped."

"Does this mean there are copies of us on the surface right now?" asked the CMO and JT shot him a disgusted look.

"Seriously, if we could find a _different _way to refer to this, that'd be great."

Once more, the Captain ignored his younger self's plea and shrugged at Bones.

"Nah. We shut that down."

Spock raised an eyebrow. Of all the illogical occurrences, his Captain translating enough of an undoubtedly alien language, to hack into a highly advanced computer, in order to shut down parts of a machine well beyond the Federations current scientific understanding, was actually one of the more likely events.

"I am curious as to how construction on the above station was completed if all life forms are transported to this location," Spock said.

"They got lucky," Jim simply replied. "Processing stations are pretty much just dropped into place and built by machine anyway and like I said, this stuff's been running on automatic for centuries. Most of it's on the fritz, the computer says it's running at about seven percent. I'm amazed it picked you guys up."

"Jim, I need a look a that machine."

"That's where I'm taking you, Bones, but you need to know… the copier's one of the few things still working fine. The thing is, it's not meant to make lasting copies."

"Again with that word," said JT, his annoyance clear as he gritted his teeth and pointedly switched language. "I do not appreciate being referred to in such a derogatory manner."

For the first time since Jim had dismissed Ensign Chekov, the Captain turned to face his counterpart. Something very close to horror crept across his face at the switch to Vulcan.

"Oh, please tell me you didn't."

JT's expression was obviously confrontational, his feet almost exactly a shoulder length apart as he forced his counterpart to stop walking to talk to him.

"Well, how was I supposed to know that you'd taken being underestimated to a _whole _new level?"

The Captain winced but otherwise relaxed. He'd been expecting something like this ever since he realized what the machine did. The persona he'd so carefully created for the Academy wasn't anything his younger self would have fallen into. At the time, that'd been most of the point.

"How bad?" he asked.

"I'm not answering their questions," shrugged JT and Jim nodded. That meant probably just Spock and Bones, and they already knew he was smarter than he acted.

"Brat."

"Paranoid conspiracy freak," he shot back.

"What?" Jim frowned and JT shook his head.

"Don't bother,"he admonished. "I saw those red-files."

The Captain's eyes widened, his posture tensing in alarm.

"Those are _completely _justified. You have no idea what they're like!"

The two Kirks stared at each other, one mocking and the other serious. The confused Spock and McCoy watched for another few seconds, waiting for one or the other to look away and Bones was reminded of the games he used to play when he was a kid. He bet Jim had always been good at the staring games.

It soon became obvious that neither were going to look away.

"I am unfamiliar with the term 'red-files'," finally interrupted Spock, somewhat confused when his Captain not only broke eye contact with his counterpart but refused to look in anyone's direction.

JT snickered but allowed his older self to answer.

"Um… Spock?" He began, still not looking at his First Officer. "You know how you don't ask too many questions when I get you a new sensor upgrade? It's kinda linked."

There was another small silence.

"Jim?" drawled McCoy, his accent thickening. "Have you been blackmailing the Admiralty?"

"No."

"Jim?"

"Seriously, Bones!" he replied, his expression as sincere as he could make it when he finally met his friend's glare. "I haven't. Promise. Do you know how much trouble I'd get in for something like that?"

"Their assistants on the other hand…" commented JT just as Bones began to relax, and the Captain glared at him.

"Thanks, JT."

"Here to help, Jim," he chirped, ignoring Jim's scowl.

"Jim…" McCoy sighed, and shook his head, deciding to ignore the alleged blackmail. He'd deal with Jim's morals later, right now there were more important issues. "What did you mean by things not being lasting?"

"I meant…" Jim sighed, absently running a hand through his hair. "It's another part of discouraging anyone else from coming down. This guy wanted new test-subjects, not people banging down his door. The… _results_ of his machine-"

"That really doesn't sound any better," interrupted JT.

"They're meant to be exactly like the originals were a decade or so ago, but after a couple of hours, they're meant to disintegrate," he admitted. "There should already be some signs of early organ failure?"

"Yeah," murmured the doctor and Spock stared at him. It was unusually negligent of McCoy to allow a patient in such a condition out of the sickbay. Even if said patient remained under his supervision.

Bones raised an eyebrow in turn. It was _Jim_. He'd never been able to deny the kid much of anything and he'd have liked to see the hobgoblin try.

"Great," proclaimed JT, ignoring the silent conversation between the two blue-shirts. "So on that old favorite scale of one to ten, what sort of pain are we talking about here?"

"A solid eight, at least," murmured his counterpart, his expression almost blank as he focused on JT. "It's- it's not going to be the organ failure, that's just what our tech would pick up first. This guy was not the fluffy puppies sort. From what I can figure the more fragile tissue is meant to go first."

"You're talking about the nervous system, aren't you?" At the Captains short nod, JT swore. "Jim, I've got a kid and two civilians up there."

"I know. They're mine too."

JT crossed his arms as he stepped a few paces away from the group. They watched him go, none of them sure what to say as JT stared blankly at the white wall, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip.

Finally Bones broke the silence, his eyes barely moving from his patient's too-still form, expecting him to try punching the wall at any moment. Hell, he half felt like punching the wall himself and he didn't care how 'illogical' it'd be.

"What do you mean by disintegrate?"

Jim shrugged. Like Bones, he didn't take his eyes off the teenager in front of them, but unlike Bones, he expected JT's stillness. He hadn't learned yet that people expected you to move when you were distressed, not save your strength.

"From what I can figure?" he replied, his voice quiet as he waited for JT to come to a decision. "Literally dissolving."

"How long?" asked JT, an odd, painful smile quirking at the edges of his mouth.

The Captain sighed, drawing his friends eyes back to him.

"Maybe another two hours? It'll start picking up speed soon."

Just then the Captain's communicator chirped into life, making the three humans jump.

"Captain," chirped a Russian voice as soon as Jim flipped the communicator open. Despite themselves, the two Kirks smiled. "I have disabled the shields disrupting our communications."

"Great work, Chekov," he congratulated before switching to a channel he knew by heart. "Kirk to Enterprise."

Only static crackled out of the device for a beat and Jim felt his heart drop. Just before he could try scanning the other channels, he heard a voice. It was faint but it was there.

"Captain?"

"Sulu!" Jim clutched the communicator tighter, a small thread of tension winding out of his shoulders. "How's everything up there?"

"Fine, sir. It's good to hear your voice, Captain." replied the delighted helmsman, his voice already coming through stronger, no doubt thanks to their lovely lady of communications.

"You too. Can you get a lock on us?"

There was a second's hesitation, but the line remained clear and when Sulu finally answered, the last of the static had gone.

"Aye Captain. Just say the word and we'll beam you up."

"We'll let you know. Kirk out." Before Spock and Bones could say anything, their Captain had started walking again, gesturing for them to follow him. "Come on. The lab's are just down here."

The hallway ended in yet another white wall, but Jim continued walking. Just before he would've walked into it, the wall opened, melting back into itself in the same disquieting way the other doors had. This time neither Spock or Bones paid any attention to the odd doors, their attention caught on the room in front of them.

Before them was a cavern of light. Unlike the more traditional lighting of the corridors, this room seemed to be lit from the walls themselves, turning a gentle glow into a searing light and leaving no shadows to be found.

Sprouting from the ground in odd rings, like malevolent mushrooms, were what looked almost like computer consoles, except for the fact that they barely reached the newcomers waists. At their root, the consoles were the same blinding white as the rest of the room but they gradually darkened to a dull grey, the light barely glinting from them.

It was alien and even for children of the Federation, who had never known a time when other species did not co-exist with their own, the scene was disquieting, the strangely melting angles scraping against their nerves.

Even so, they were Starfleet, and they'd seen more alien sights than a lab before. The disorientation only lasted a moment before they started to mentally catalogue the lab into something more comfortable to their eyes. The set-out probably made a lot more sense to the builder's eyes. Judging from the brightness of the room and the height of the work stations, they were dealing with a solely diurnal species, probably not more than four feet tall.

That by itself allowed them a few guesses. The computers would probably use light in the same way theirs did. Things that were bright were probably of more interest than things that weren't.

"Welcome to the main lab," proclaimed Jim once he was certain his officers and JT were back with him. "It looks like this is where our guy spent most of his time. He's got a cot and personal computer in a small room just off from here. That's where we found his body."

That statement immediately grabbed the doctor's attention.

"Jim!" he scolded. "Tell me you didn't go poking around a dead body? Do you know how many diseases there could be in that thing?"

"The Captain already stated that the scientist has been dead for centuries. It is unlikely for there to be any danger from a body in such a stage of decomposition," defended Spock and McCoy started muttering under his breath. His companions politely ignored the snatches of 'damn hobgoblins' and 'suicidal idiots'.

"Yeah… he's not really decomposed," admitted their sheepish Captain. "More like mummified. So either life-support switches itself off when it's not needed or it's one of the things shorting out."

"So _that's_ why you were working on the transporters," JT said. "I wondered."

Bones glared at his best friend.

"Wait just a minute," he growled. "You mean _life-support's_ not working down here?"

The two Kirks looked innocently confused by the question but Spock just raised an eyebrow.

"Doctor," he replied, his monotone somehow managing to imply his doubt of that title."As no one has reported any difficulty breathing, that is obviously incorrect."

"But it was a chance!" he snapped. "Jim, you _tell_ people about that sort of thing!"

"I didn't want to worry you," the Captain looked concerned at his friend's displeasure but Spock noticed the way JT appeared to be hiding a smirk as he carefully faced away from the doctor. Fortunately, McCoy did not seem to make the same observation.

"Worry? Worry!" Bones repeated, pointing an accusing finger at the idiot he called Captain. "Do you have any idea what suffocation does?"

"Well, it's not on my preferred way to die list," idly declared JT as he studied a nearby console.

"Fascinating," commented Spock. "You have made a list?"

"He was joking, Spock," interrupted Jim before his counterpart could do more than shrug. "And anyway, Chekov fixed the communicators! If anything happens, the Enterprise'll beam us up."

"Unbelievable," McCoy muttered as he stormed past his companions to one of the odd clusters of computers. Spock followed, judging from the half disassembled remains of a tricorder, this was one of the places his Captain had been working.

As they examined the primitive interface their Captain set up, Jim walked up to his counterpart.

"You good?" he asked, the idle question at odds with his sympathetic expression.

JT nodded, his face blank as he half-turned towards the older Jim and ice-blue eyes met their match.

"I've got to be," he replied. "Like I said, I've got a kid and two civilians on the Enterprise."

For a moment, the two Kirks just stared at each other, both knowing what was implied in that sentence and both knowing exactly why JT had decided to trust the Fleet officers instead of relying on himself. Before he could respond, Bones looked up and Jim sighed, no longer sure what he'd wanted to say to his younger self.

"Jim," yelled the doctor from across the room. "I want you in sickbay."

"Yeah, we'll both go," cheerfully answered Jim, showing no sign of the intent discussion with himself. "I want to see this young Chekov."

Spock straightened up from the low computers, easily coming to parade rest as he faced his commanding officer.

"With your permission Captain," he announced, pitching his voice to carry without the indignity of shouting and ignoring the dark look McCoy shot him. "I will send for two science teams."

"And I want a med-team!" Added Bones, his yell louder than before and he silently rejoiced in the almost imperceptible flinch it earned from Spock.

"Ok," Jim agreed, ignoring the antagonistic byplay between his friends. "I don't want anyone left alone but we haven't found anything dangerous down here. Keep an eye out just in case."

Bones ignored him, immersing himself back in the machine specifications as soon as he had his Captain's permission, but Spock nodded at the gentle order.

"Yes sir."


	5. Chapter 5

The fifth Chapter and weirdly enough, it ends in the fifth hour of the story. Yes, I wrote up a timeline for this story just to keep everything straight. If anyone's interested I'll be happy to put it up or send it. Why yes, I am a geek... did my fandom not give that away? :D

Again and forever, thank you Spockaholic, my beta.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Five<strong>

On the flagship Enterprise, sickbay was rushed.

Every on and off-duty member of the science and medical sections, and a good portion of the engineering staff, had been pulled into the current project, and the links between the Enterprise computers and the portable ones down on Saresh IV were humming. In true Enterprise fashion, it was now a race against time, and both Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy were demanding every scrap of attention from the crew.

The two cadet versions of Sims and Garrard had not taken the news of more tests well and had been sedated by the increasingly harried med-staff. Looking at the startlingly young appearances of his two lieutenants, Jim couldn't help but wonder if they would ever wake up again. He knew Spock and Bones would do their best, but there was barely any time. It'd taken him two hours down there just to break down the firewalls, and the plans he'd seen for the copy machine were completely beyond him.

The five year old Pasha, who'd easily accepted their explanation that he was JT's older cousin called Jim, was already on painkillers. He'd started complaining of a stomach ache ten minutes ago, but until they knew something more about how the machine worked, there was nothing even the Enterprise's med-staff could do.

"Hey, no fair!" cried his teenage self, abruptly bringing him back to the present and Jim grinned. Apparently Chekov had always been a math whiz. JT had given him one of his programming guides before he'd left, and now the five year old seemed to think that hacking was a perfectly respectable strategy whenever the library's multi-player math game got too boring. Seeing as that was the sort of thing he had done in school when he was not much older, both Kirks were very amused.

"You snooze, you loose, brat," crowed Jim as he submitted his completed formula seconds before JT.

"Captain?"

Jim immediately looked up and gestured a hesitant looking Sulu over to the bio-bed they were perched on.

"Hey Sulu. Guys, this is Hikaru Sulu. He's our Chief Helmsman."

The young Pasha smiled politely at the newcomer, but JT was staring straight at his older self. Judging from the brat's smirk, his immediate reaction to his rank had been noted for further mocking potential. He'd always known that teenage-him had some serious issues but he'd never realized how smug he was back then.

"Is it alright? The Commander said there was no danger, so Alpha swapped out and I thought-"

"It's fine."

The two Kirks shared a look. It wasn't an easy look. It was filled with hard choices and the necessity of not leaving anyone behind or alone. It was knowing their own limitations and deciding how much others could be trusted, but eventually, JT nodded and the Captain led Sulu to one side.

JT found himself almost thankful for the attempt at privacy. Not that sickbay was large enough to give him much of that.

"Pasha?"

"Da?"

The young Russian barely looked up, intently setting up his PADD for the next level of the game. For a moment, JT just stared at him, burning this moment into his mind. Nothing ever lasted but he'd remember this, he'd remember how happy Pasha looked right now. It was all he could promise.

"I want you to play with Hikaru for a bit, ok?" He finally said. Pasha stopped typing and just stared down at his PADD.

"Are you going away again?" he whispered.

JT sighed, pulling Pasha into a rough hug.

"Yeah but I won't be far this time. I'm just… I'm going to go lie down."

Pasha's thin frame relaxed at the explanation, obviously reassured that JT was not abandoning him and he curled closer into his warm embrace.

"You are tired too?"

"Yeah," he choked out, thankful that the kid didn't know him better. Pasha had only been awake a few hours, it was just the drug-induced lethargy making him assume it was late enough to sleep. "I'm tired too."

"And when you wake up, we can play?" Pasha checked, already happily certain of the answer. JT tightened the hug, forcing his voice back to a calm normality.

"Sure. When we wake up… but until you fall asleep you can play with Hikaru, right?"

"Da, I will play with Hikaru," agreed Pasha, carefully pronouncing the unfamiliar name. "I will teach him game."

"You're a good kid, Pasha."

"I am not goat," he frowned, pulling away slightly so he could stare up at JT in concern. "I am Russian."

JT smiled and pulled away completely, leaving the disgruntled Pasha alone in the middle of the bio-bed.

"Sorry. That was a silly thing to say," he admitted, gathering up the thin sickbay blankets from under the bio-bed where they'd been kicked earlier.

Pasha nodded, still concerned but accepting as he let JT fluff up the pillows behind him and tuck the blankets around his legs. He waited until JT was finished before silently demanding one last hug.

"When I grow up," he whispered as he pulled JT close. "I am being Starfleet Officer, like Jim."

"I'll make you a deal then," JT murmured back. "When you're in Starfleet, I'll be there too."

The small child allowed him to break the hug, glee lighting up Pasha's face.

"You promise?"

JT nodded, his smile small but warm and he gave thanks once more that Pasha didn't know him very well.

"I promise," he reaffirmed. "Goodnight Pasha."

"Goodnight JT," he chirped, happily going back to his PADD and already planning how to introduce Hikaru into the game.

Ten feet away, Jim and Sulu watched the pair out of the corner of their eyes.

"Is he really…?"

Jim nodded, not looking at his helmsman.

"They're working on it but there's not much time left," he murmured.

They stood peacefully together for a few moments, both lost in their own thoughts as they waited for the two on the bio-bed to say their goodbyes. Finally Sulu broke the silence, his eyes flicking across to where JT was tucking in the much younger version of their navigator.

"What do I say?"

"Just talk to him," reassured Jim. "They'll be increasing his pain-meds soon, but if he's in any pain, just call them over. You'll do fine."

"Thank you, Captain."

Sulu took a deep breath, his back straightening as he put on a smile and went straight to the chair by the bio-bed. Watching him as he swiftly won the kid over and integrated himself into a new game, Jim was reminded how amazing his crew was. It was disturbing enough watching a younger version of one of your friends suffer, but Sulu didn't let on any of it. He looked for all the world like he'd rather be nowhere else and Pasha just responded to that.

He carefully restrained his urge to clap a sympathetic arm around JT's shoulders as he slouched over to him, knowing that JT wouldn't welcome an uninvited touch from an adult male. Instead Jim scanned the room for the Head Nurse. It only took a second to spot her and Jim couldn't help his smile as he saw who Christine was talking with.

Almost as if he'd sensed his Captain's gaze, which wasn't entirely impossible, Spock finished his conversation and walked away from the nurse. A few paces away from him, and before Jim could say anything, Spock fell into parade rest, his hands neatly tucking behind his back.

"Captain, Room 3 has been prepared for your convenience."

"Spock…" sighed the bemused Jim. "Shouldn't you be down on the planet?"

"Mr. Scott, Lt. Flanders and Ensign Chekov are heading the teams examining the actual machine, Captain," he answered, quick to assure his Captain that he was not neglecting his duties. "I am of more use examining the data with the help of the ship's computer."

JT shot his counterpart a knowing smirk but said nothing as Jim led them to the private sick-room. Spock immediately stationed himself to one side of the bio-bed, carefully watching JT climb onto it as the Captain investigated the room.

The fact that JT allowed Jim to look around and headed straight for the bed instead of inspecting the room himself was telling. He'd been adamantly refusing all pain killers for the past half hour, but both Kirks knew that wasn't going to last.

"Ok, so we've got plenty of efrugrenol, krulltyline…" listed Jim before pausing at the last hypospray on the table. "And we've also got about twenty cc's of bri-talimide."

Spock immediately raised an eyebrow.

"I understood that you are allergic to bri-talimide, Captain," he commented, scarcely believing that the usually efficient Nurse Chapel would make such a basic mistake. His Captain merely smiled, apparently unconcerned.

"Christine probably just grabbed the closest pain-killers to hand, Spock," Jim dismissed. "Besides, we've got plenty of stuff I'm not allergic to."

JT seemed similarly at ease with the potentially fatal error and Spock reluctantly dropped the matter, silently deciding to mention the matter to Doctor McCoy at a later date. His Captain may see such a mistake as harmless, but he was certain that the good doctor would take the proper actions to ensure such a thing did not happen again.

As if he knew what his First Officer was thinking, Jim walked over to him and laid a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Spock, I've got this," he assured and Spock's eyes widened almost imperceptibly in alarm. "Why don't you go back to the data?"

"Captain I-"

"Spock," interrupted Jim and Spock stilled.

"Very well," he finally agreed. "I shall inform you as soon as I have any progress to report."

"Thanks," smiled Jim and with a final nod at both his Captain and JT, Spock walked away.

They watched him go with mixed feelings but neither Kirk attempted to call him back as Spock locked the door behind him. At the quiet chime of a privacy lock, both Jim and JT felt like the room had dropped a degree or two but both shrugged it off and JT looked back up at his older-self.

"You don't have to keep watch either, you know," he murmured.

"My ship, my watch," Jim teased as he picked up one of the hyposprays.

JT allowed him to apply a shot of the efrugrenol without protest and Jim nodded to himself. He knew where that pain tolerance had come from, but there was no need for it here. The kid wasn't going to suffer if he could help it. For a moment he wondered if this was how Bones felt every time he shrugged off something he shouldn't, before dismissing the thought. He couldn't afford to start letting Bones baby him every time he got injured on an away-mission.

For a couple of seconds there was silence as JT made himself comfortable, feeling the worst of his tension ebbing away as the pain-killer kicked in. He frowned up at the ceiling as he wondered what to ask Jim first. It was just so strange that this was _him_, this was someone he could actually turn into. It was completely disorientating to see someone that looked so much like the old holos of his Dad and know just where that quirk came from or what that expression meant… or why Jim wasn't going to talk first.

Finally, he decided on a question that had been bothering for over an hour now.

"So who's the old man?"

Jim shook his head.

"You looked through my personal logs didn't you?"

"Of course," he shrugged. "Not like I even had to hack anything, the voice rec. accepted me."

"Huh…" frowned Jim. "I'll have to fix that."

"So? The old man is…?"

"Spock. He got trapped here from over a century in the future and decided to stick around."

"So, that's why they just assumed time travel."

"Yep. That sort of thing happens to us all the time."

The silence returned, each wanting to ask the other so many questions and neither knowing quite how to start. Jim wanted to know what his younger self had thought, how he'd felt when he looked about the Enterprise, what his first impression of Bones and Spock had been.

JT just wanted to know how he'd actually made friends.

Eventually it was Jim that asked the next question, but not with anything he really wanted to know. He figured that stuff could wait a little while, the first step was to get JT talking.

"So, what are you studying?"

JT answered with a subtle repositioning of his back and a tilt of his head at a precise angle. Jim immediately resettled his elbows and tapped once on his right thigh. The conversation continued like that for a few seconds, full of subtle movements that very few outside of Orion society would ever even recognize as a language before JT faltered and impatiently shook his head.

"That meant price scare, right?"

"Oh, come on!" laughed Jim. "You know what she'd say about that."

"If you can't ask your question in the language you're speaking, then you don't deserve to be answered," dutifully recited JT with possibly the most honest smile he'd allowed himself yet. It felt almost good to be able to refer to his old linguistics tutor with someone who actually knew her. "Yeah, I know. Do you remember how amazed we were when other linguists didn't just throw you into a language head first and expect you to pick it up?"

"Yeah, I remember."

The pair shared an almost identical rueful grin.

"She would've loved you serving on the Enterprise," JT admitted.

"Yeah. Although Chris was just as proud. You'll never guess how I found out I was being promoted to Captain."

"How?"

After that one question, the conversation just flowed without pause. Jim would retell some event from his Academy days, reveling in the way JT would pick out all the important details, like how Bones had switched from knowing where his med-kit was, to carrying around at least one allergy medication to somehow hiding a dozen medications in his pockets. Afterwards, JT would make an observation, or remark on something he'd noticed on his quick foray in the Enterprise computer and Jim would eagerly pick up another tale.

Both of them stayed away from more serious subjects- Jim because he already knew all the shadows in his younger self's mind. He knew all the weak points to stay away from, the words not to use and saw no reason not to avoid them for once, just for a bit. He just wanted to pretend that the teenager in front of him wasn't as damaged as he knew he was, and JT wanted to believe for just a little while longer that life could be kind. He didn't want to know the price Jim had paid for this life of his, he just wanted to hear the good parts for once.

He was dying. He wanted to be selfish and Jim seemed to have no problem with that. It was strange, he'd always thought he'd die alone. Sometimes he'd even looked forward to that idea, it meant that no one would risk dying with him, but this company was nice. It felt almost safe in a way he couldn't really remember feeling before.

It was just after Jim had just finished a story about one of Sulu's plants taking over the canteen when another of the increasingly noticeable swells of pain over took him and choked off his laughter.

Jim waited patiently until he had stopped regulating his breathing. There was no point commenting on how these pauses were increasing. They both knew that. In the past hour they'd used up all of the efrugrenol and over a third of the krulltyline but he'd left it at JT's discretion. As a teenager, he'd always been furious about how little control he had over his own life. It cost him nothing to let JT have that control now, without making him fight for it.

"I think I'll have that bri-talimide now."

The Captain nodded. He'd been expecting that the past couple of times.

"You're sure?"

"Yeah. I am," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Ok."

They shared an understanding look as Jim pressed the last hypospray against his skin. The last time they'd been given this drug, it'd almost killed them, one of the many complications his annoying body chemistry had with modern medicine. It was meant to be just a heavy-duty painkiller, more powerful than any opiate but not dangerous. With him, after about four minutes he'd slip into a coma and as soon as the hypospray hissed, they started their mental countdown.

"These past few years have been… difficult," admitted JT.

"I know. I've never really talked about it but if you want… I think it might help."

"You've never told anyone?"

"Just the shrinks, and they're only ever interested in the big stuff. They hear genocide and assume-"

"-that that's the worst of it but it's not. The flashbacks and the PTSD… I'm dealing with all of that."

"Yeah, we make it through that."

"It's the day to day stuff."

"Just getting up everyday."

"Just staying alive," JT corrected. "There's just so much…"

"Go on."

"It's surviving but… I don't want to just survive. I've done too much to be happy with that. Can't live because monsters don't deserve to and I can't die because then who'll look after the kids if they need help? Except that's not true anymore because you're here. You'll look after them, keep them safe."

"It's not the only reason not to die."

JT chuckled. "When did you decide you wanted to live?"

"I was twenty-three, at the Academy," Jim answered without hesitation. "Bones and I had been sharing a room for almost a year. He'd just finished a nine hour shift and had classes in four hours. He should've stayed at the hospital and gotten some sleep there, but instead, he came all the way back to the dorm and when he saw me still there, something just relaxed in him. He started bitching about interns who didn't know one end of a osteo-regen from the other, kicked off his shoes, fell into bed, and was asleep in a couple of seconds."

"Sounds domestic."

"It wasn't that," he dismissed. "It's just… he didn't need me. I didn't make his day better, I didn't help him, he wasn't even awake long enough to complain properly. He was just… he was happy to see me. Didn't make a difference either way, but he was. That's when I knew just not dying wasn't enough anymore."

"You still need-"

"To be needed? Yeah, I still self-destruct when I'm not. I'm kinda dreading the refit. A year grounded with no one to look after? If I'm lucky, reading too much Nietzsche will be the worst of my problems."

JT smiled slightly.

"You really trust them, don't you?"

"Yeah," said Jim. "They don't know the right questions and it's… difficult sometimes, but yeah, I trust them. More than I ever thought I could."

"They'll leave, you know."

"Everyone does."

"How do you get used to that?"

"I don't know. I think you're just meant to endure it. Besides, pain-"

"-let's you know you're still alive," finished JT. "I know, but I'm just so tired of everything hurting all the time. I'm just so _tired_…"

"I know. Don't worry, I'll keep watch."

"You'll keep them safe?"

"Always."

"Even when it hurts?"

"I promise. Go to sleep, JT. I've got this."

"Tell me a story?"

"Once upon a time there was a small boy and he loved nothing more than to stare up at the stars…"

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

Half an hour later, Doctor Leonard McCoy used his medical override on Private Ward 3 and bit back a curse. Lying on the bed was JT, already showing signs of unnatural decomposition. Jim was just sitting there, staring down at the corpse. He was barely breathing himself and didn't bother acknowledging the door.

Bones had nightmares a lot like this.

"I'm sorry, Jim."

"Don't be," Jim said, his voice gentle but still not looking up.

"The technology's centuries beyond us, it'd take years to try and understand it…" McCoy sighed. "I should've been here."

"It's ok, Bones. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him like that."

"Like what? In pain? Damnit Jim, you don't think…? Jim. I'll always be there for you, you know that right?"

He finally looked up and Bones was stunned to see no trace of tears. His friend could have just finished an exhausting pile of paperwork for all the emotion he was showing, but something in those blue eyes forced a cold shiver down his spine. Before he could even try and figure it out, the whatever-it-was was gone and it was just Jim looking back, looking exhausted and torn, but still just Jim.

Bones shook himself. Of course Jim was tired. Anyone would be, after all of this.

"Come on, Bones. I'm overdue my post-away team check-up and I don't want you and Spock double-teaming me again. I've got a lot of work to do."

"No," McCoy said. He wrapped a hand around Jim's arm and gently pulled him the rest of the way out of the seat. Jim stiffened for a second before allowing it and Bones ignored his reluctance. He couldn't read people and know what they wanted like Jim did and he didn't know how to make their Captain laugh like Spock could, but he was still a doctor. He could make sure that Jim was looked after medically, if nothing else.

Unknown to either of the two humans, Spock had been sitting just inside the CMO's office for the last hour and thirty-five minutes. Despite his Captain's dismissal, he had been determined to be close at hand should he be needed, and the advanced medical computers in McCoy's office allowed him to continue his work on the alien database.

He watched silently as the doctor pulled Jim into the main sickbay by his upper arm and if Spock's expression was not one the Vulcan elders would have approved of, no one saw.

McCoy hauled his friend to the nearest bio-bed, his grip gentle but insistent.

"You're going to get checked out and then you're going to sleep," groused Bones. "Doctor's orders."

"You're so not the boss of me," Jim childishly announced even as he sat down.

"In this, I am."

Before he could even pick up his medical tricorder, Bones thought of the body in the other room and called his Head Nurse over. He trusted Christine to look after Jim for a bit, but he'd let no one else handle his final duty to JT. Even if the defensive teenager had only been a copy, it was still _Jim_. He'd take care of him.

Neither of them said a word as the doctor abruptly gave the nurse orders and strode back towards Room 3, both falling into the well-known Starfleet routine. She easily ran through the health checks, her manner just as professionally compassionate as ever. When they were finally done, she smiled at her Captain and handed him the gold command shirt.

"Captain?"

"Yeah?"

"Forgive me for asking-"

"Hey, when have I ever condemned curiosity on this ship?" he grinned at her, and despite herself, Christine felt her own professional expression widen into a true smile.

"The younger-you said you'd been to Belarus? I was wondering why?"

"Ah. Seventeen was my backpacking-slash-avoiding all authority figures year. I took full advantage of not needing a passport to skip country and just went. I think I hit just about everywhere except Russia."

"Why not Russia?"

"I'd have loved to, but winter was closing in and I had a _sleeping bag_. It'd take a lot tougher person than me to brave Russia in winter so I headed south and just never seemed to make it back."

With most of the medical staff now down on the planet, sickbay was almost empty and his words were easily heard over the soft chimes of the technology surrounding them. From their respective positions just inside Room 3 and in McCoy's office, Bones and Spock froze.

As they listened to the gentle flirting between Jim and Chapel, both of them shared the same sensation of unease and wondered how many times they had fallen for a story just like that from Jim.

It was time to start asking questions.

**The End**

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **As some of you already know (yes Mrs Tibbles, I mean you :D), this story was originally posted on lj (under the same name) and was written for the StarTrek BigBang. The BB was pretty amazing this year, I _still_ haven't read everything posted that I want to, so everyone should check it out.

My artist was davincisgirl who did some brilliant pieces of work which you should definitely see, comment and drool over at: davincis-girl (dot) livejournal (dot) com / 185093

And my Fan Mixer was amechiro who did an amazing soft-rock mix, I must have listened to it a good fifty times in a month. The link is: oishimomo (dot) livejournal (dot) com / 6673

My posting date was the eleventh of November, and I was kinda nervous about posting on Rememberance Day, so I'm going to to say thank you to everyone reading this, both then and now. I hope I touched a few of you and that you enjoyed yourself. This fic has really reminded me how much I love writing, which I forgot for a year or two and I owe a lot to everyone that's reviewed.

-Lethe

'On the eleventh day, of the eleventh month' - Lest we forget.


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